WASHINGTON Sessions faces new questions in Russia probe
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats have demanded an explanation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions over why he did not disclose a March 2016 gathering with thencandidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign team at which an adviser offered to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sessions’ participation in the gathering was detailed in court documents released Monday by special counsel Robert Mueller. The adviser who offered to set up the meeting was George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, according to the documents.
Sessions had not previously disclosed the meeting, despite being asked over multiple appearances on Capitol Hill whether he or anyone on the campaign ever discussed meeting with Russians.
“This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, about the Trump team’s contacts with agents of Russia,” Senate Judiciary Committee member Al Franken, DMinn., wrote Thursday in a letter to Sessions.
Senate Republicans were less ruffled about his participation in the Papadopoulos meeting.
“If anybody’s got any concerns about his meeting, write him a letter and see what he says,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S. C.
A Sessions spokeswoman declined to comment this week on the March 31 meeting with Trump and campaign advisers, including Papadopoulos. But on Thursday, a person familiar with Sessions’ recollections said that “people who remember the conversation” believed that Papadopoulos was proposing an idea of using his Russian contacts to try to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin, “which was immediately rejected by then-Senator Sessions.”
Also Thursday, the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist nominee, Sam Clovis, withdrew his name from consideration amid revelations that he was among top officials on the Trump campaign who was aware of efforts by Papadopoulos to broker a relationship between the campaign and Russian officials.
In August 2016, Clovis encouraged Papadopoulos to organize an “off the record” meeting with Russian officials, according to court documents.
In a letter to the president Wednesday, Clovis explained that he did not think he could get a fair consideration from the Senate, which was slated to hold a hearing on his appointment on Nov. 9.