Clinton faces corruption inquiry... but not because of Trump, says Sessions
JEFF SESSIONS yesterday denied Donald Trump’s tweets were influencing his decisions as it emerged he may launch an investigation into Hillary Clinton corruption allegations.
Mr Sessions, the US attorney general, said Mr Trump is “bold and direct” in expressing his views but promised his decisions would be based on facts alone.
He played down the row by denying he had been “improperly influenced” by the US president and admitting such behaviour would be “wrong”.
It followed the revelation that Mr Sessions is considering appointing a special counsel to look at topics linked to Mrs Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Mr Trump. They include allegations of corruption against her charitable foundation and the Russian sale of a company with access to US uranium when she was secretary of state.
In a separate development, it was reported last night that the FBI is investigating almost $400,000 (£303,000) worth of payments from the Russian foreign ministry. Many of the mystery payments contained the line “to finance election campaign of 2016”, including one of almost $30,000 sent to its embassy in Washington DC.
Sixty wire transfers to Russian embassies from Afghanistan to Nigeria were being looked into, Buzzfeed News reported. It is unclear for what the money was intended.
Mr Sessions, a stalwart in Mr Trump’s campaign, has become the target of the president’s anger for his failure to stop the investigation into links between the campaign and Russia, as well as the Justice Department’s failure to investigate Mrs Clinton and the Democrats.
Government lawyers confirmed Mr Sessions was considering launching a special counsel into Clinton-linked topics. It would counterbalance another by Robert Mueller, who is ruthlessly pursuing an investigation into Trump campaign links with Russia.
Earlier this month Mr Trump said: “I am really not involved with the Justice Department. I’d like to let it run itself. But honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats.”
Appearing before a congressional committee yesterday, Mr Sessions denied the decision had anything to do with Mr Trump’s tweets or comments.
“I have not been improperly influenced and would not be improperly influenced,” Mr Sessions said.
He also said that the Justice Department should “never be used to retaliate against political opponents”.
It has since emerged that Mr Sessions was present at a meeting when a campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, talked about reaching out to the Russians. Mr Sessions said he “pushed back” on the suggestion.
It also emerged Donald Trump Jr had messaged Wikileaks, the transparency body that released Mrs Clinton’s hacked emails, during the campaign.