Trump’s law chief quits Russia inquiry
Attorney general insists he did nothing wrong as Democrats strengthen calls for him to resign
Donald Trump’s attorney general said he would step aside from an investigation into Moscow meddling in the US election. Jeff Sessions bowed to pressure from both Democrats and Republicans after it emerged he had twice talked with Moscow’s US envoy during the campaign.
DONALD TRUMP’S attorney general announced yesterday he was standing aside from an investigation into Russian interference in the US election after it emerged he twice talked with Russia’s ambassador to Washington during the campaign.
Jeff Sessions had been under intense pressure ever since details of the meetings emerged after he had already testified before Congress that he had not spoken to Russian officials.
While his decision will defuse the immediate crisis, it still leaves nagging doubts that Mr Trump’s senior aides were hiding contacts with Russia during a period when the Kremlin ordered cyber attacks on Hillary Clinton.
At a hastily arranged press conference, Mr Sessions insisted he had done nothing wrong and was acting in his capacity as a senator. But he was happy to follow the counsel of his ethics advisers at the Department of Justice who said he should step aside from the FBI’s investigation into hacking and ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
“I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaign for the president of the United States,” he said.
The decision was welcomed by critics on his own side – such as Lindsay Graham who called it “the best deci- sion for the country” – but Democratic leaders were not impressed.
Nancy Pelosi, who leads the party in the House of Representatives, described it as a “sorry attempt to explain away his perjury” and repeated her call for Mr Sessions to resign. His announcement came only an hour and a half after Mr Trump said he had “total” confidence in his Attorney General and that there was no need to recuse himself.
Even as Mr Sessions tried to draw a line under one crisis, other questions emerged. The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-inlaw and senior adviser, was present at a meeting between Michael Flynn, then nominated as National Security Adviser, and the Russian ambassador in December at Trump Tower.
Critics had always questioned whether Mr Sessions, a Trump cam- paign cheerleader, was an appropriate choice to become the country’s most senior law officer. Those questions grew on Wednesday night when the Department of Justice confirmed he had twice met the Russian ambassador before the election.
Democrats seized on the way he appeared to deny under oath any meetings during his January confirmation hearings when he was asked what he would do if anyone affiliated with the campaign had been in contact with Moscow.
But at his news conference, he said he had been answering a question about a continuing exchange of campaign information between Trump surrogates and Russia.
“I did not respond by referring to the two meetings – one very brief after a speech, and another with two of my Congressional staffers with the Russian ambassador in Washington where no such things were discussed,” he said.
Instead he explained the conversations had included a chat about a 1991 visit he made to Russia with a church group, terrorism and Ukraine rather than American politics.
There is no evidence of any collusion between Mr Trump’s election campaign and Russia’s effort to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s White House run.
Yet it continues to cast a pall over Mr Trump. Mr Flynn was forced to resign last month after it emerged he misled the Vice President over conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Robert Shapiro, professor of government at Columbia University, said: “We are now getting further evidence of how the Trump administration and its officials may have been engaging in a cover-up of serious misdeeds, much like how Watergate slowly unravelled during the Nixon administration.”