Sessions defends Comey firing, dodges Trump queries
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions strongly defended President Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey, but at a Senate hearing Wednesday repeatedly declined to discuss private conversations with the president about the dismissal, frustrating Democratic lawmakers who wanted to link the firing of the FBI director to a broader inquiry into Russian election meddling.
The repeated, often testy questioning about the Russia investigation, coming even as Sessions spearheads sweeping changes to the Justice Department in the areas of LGBT rights, criminal justice and immigration, illustrates the extent to which the probe continues to shadow Sessions even though he recused himself months ago.
Sessions advised the Senate Judiciary Committee at the outset of his first oversight hearing as attorney general that he would not answer any questions about conversations with the president that he considered confidential.
He largely adhered to that principle during the five-hour hearing, refusing to say what Trump told him about his reasons for wanting to fire Comey, whether Trump confided in him his concern about “lifting the cloud” of the Russia investigation and whether he had asked him to drop a criminal case against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona.
Sessions deflected the questions by maintaining that presidents are entitled to have private discussions with Cabinet secretaries, saying at one point, “I do not confirm or deny the existence of any communication between the president that I consider to be confidential.”
Still, Sessions’ defense of the Comey firing — and his insistence it stemmed from the handling of the Hillary Clinton email case — was consistent with the initial explanation by the White House. It was, he said, “the first time I’m aware of” in which an FBI director had performed the traditional role of Justice Department prosecutors by announcing on his own the conclusion of a federal investigation — that no charges would be brought against Clinton.
He said he was further galled when Comey, shortly before his firing, insisted to Congress he would have taken the same actions again.
“That was a fairly stunning event for both of us and it did highlight the problem more significantly than it had been before,” Sessions said, referring to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Though he refused to say whether he discussed with Trump Comey’s involvement in the Russia investigation, he did say the president had asked him and Rosenstein for their recommendations about what to do with Comey.
But that explanation has been muddled by Trump himself, who days after the May 9 firing said he would have fired Comey even without the Justice Department’s recommendation and that he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he dismissed him.
The circumstances of Comey’s firing are among many events being investigated by Robert Mueller, who was appointed as the Justice Department’s special counsel to look into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. After initially balking at the question, Sessions said that Mueller’s investigative team had not approached him for an interview.
The hearing marked a return to the Judiciary Committee for Sessions, who served on it for years as a Republican senator. Yet his interactions with his former peers have been frayed as attorney general, particularly amid Democratic accusations that he provided misleading testimony at his confirmation hearing about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
He bickered with Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, who accused him of having moved the “goalpost” in his denials about his contacts with the ambassador.