WELL, RECUSE ME

Bows out of any Russia probe amid diplo storm

Amid a swirl of controversy over his contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that he will recuse himself from any investigations into the Kremlin’s interference with the 2016 presidential election.

“I should not be involved with investigating a campaign I had a role in,” he said at an afternoon press conference at the Justice Department.

Sessions (right, making the announcement), a Trump surrogate and foreign-policy liaison during the White House race, said that over the last several weeks, he had discussed with senior officials whether he should recuse himself from campaign-related probes.

“They said that since I had involvement in the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” he said. “I believe those recommendations are right and just, and, therefore, I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign.”

Sessions faced mounting pressure from Democrats and Republicans to step aside after The Washington Post Wednesday revealed that the then-senator (R-Ala.) had spoken with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian am- bassador, on two occasions during the presidential campaign.

Sessions failed to mention those conversations at his Senate confirmation hearing in January, despite being asked by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) what he would do if he became aware that someone with the Trump campaign had communicated with the Kremlin.

Sessions flatly responded that he “did not have communications with the Russians.”

On Thursday, he defended his answer as “honest and correct as I understood it at the time.”

“In retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, ‘But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times,’ ” he added.

Sessions also vehemently denied discussing campaign issues with Kislyak, with whom he spoke in mid-July, after a Heritage Foundation event at the Republican National Convention, and again on Sept. 8, during a private meeting in the then-senator’s office.

By late July, the FBI had already begun investigating whether the Russian government had hacked the Democratic National Committee.

“Let me be clear: I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said Thursday.

It was also reported by Politico on Thursday that two addi- tional Trump campaign advisers — Carter Page and J.D. Gordon — had joined Sessions for his luncheon with Kislyak at the GOP convention in Cleveland.

President Trump stuck by his attorney general Thursday night, releasing a statement that called Sessions “an honest man” and claimed that he “did not say anything wrong.”

Trump didn’t think Sessions had to recuse himself — but a chorus of lawmakers, many Republican, disagreed.

“AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself,” tweeted Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Other Republicans — including Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.) and Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) — also came out in support of Sessions stepping aside from campaign probes.

Now that Sessions has recused himself, Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente will take over.

Democrats are pushing for a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation — but it would be up to Boente to appoint one.