Public Senate grill for AG on Russia, Comey
It you liked the Comey Show, you won’t want to miss the Sessions sequel.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify in public Tuesday before the Senate intelligence committee about Russian meddling in the presidential election and his conversations with since-fired FBI Director James Comey.
The announcement by the committee ended speculation that Sessions (top inset) would be relegated to a closeddoor, classified setting.
A Sessions spokeswoman said the attorney general asked that the hearing be open.
“He believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him and looks forward to answering the committee’s questions,” said spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores.
But the AG may be limited in what he can say.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday it’s “premature” to say whether Sessions will reveal what was said in conversations with President Trump.
Spicer didn’t rule out Sessions invoking executive privilege.
“I think it depends on the scope of the questions,” Spicer said. “To get into a hypothetical at this point would be premature.”
Sessions, a senator from Alabama before becoming AG, was previously scheduled to testify Tuesday before the House and Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss the Justice Department budget.
But he scrapped that plan after questions were raised by Comey in his testimony before the intelligence committee last week about his interactions with Trump and Sessions.
Comey testified that he didn’t brief Sessions about a Feb. 14 Oval Office meeting with the president because the attorney general had “problematic” involvement with Russia and was going to have to recuse himself from the Justice Department probe of Kremlin involvement in the US election.
Sessions, a key campaign adviser to Trump and the first senator to endorse him, stepped aside from the investigation in early March after acknowledging he had spoken twice in the months before the election with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Sessions is likely to be asked about his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and whether there were more encounters that should have been made public.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) called Sessions’ agreement to testify in the open a “positive step,” given all the “many unanswered and troubling questions” that exist.
Among them are what involvement Sessions had with the Russia investigation and why he recommended Comey’s firing in May after recusing himself from matters related to Russia.
“Recommending Director Comey’s firing would seem to be a violation of his recusal, and Attorney General Sessions needs to answer for that,” Schumer said on Monday.