Sessions dodges questions about firing of FBI director
Attorney general cites privileged communications
Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a Senate panel Wednesday that he would not discuss the content of his conversations with President Trump about the May firing of FBI Director James Comey, citing the president’s privileged communications with his executive staff.
Sessions said the privilege cannot be breached without Trump’s consent. He called it a “core privilege of the president.”
“I would just urge us all to respect the legitimacy of any president’s right to seek advice in private. This is not a little matter,” Sessions said.
Sessions’ appearance Wednesday was his first before the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, since his confirmation hearings in January. The nine-month gap between appearances left senators with multiple questions, some of which Sessions answered and some he didn’t.
Trump fired Comey in the midst of the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, DR. I., challenged Sessions’ refusal to divulge the nature of his discussions with the president regarding the Comey firing, claiming that the attorney general was invoking privilege even though the president has not directly indicated that the conversations were covered by the privilege.
Sessions defended his position, saying that the president had broad authority to retain the confidentiality of his discussions with Cabinet members.
Committee Democrats pressed the attorney general Wednesday on his role in the Comey firing. Sessions declined to answer whether Trump had discussed firing Comey to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation.
At the same time, however, he told California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s senior Democrat, that he did not believe there was full understanding of the “significance of the error” in Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State.
Sessions said he had agreed with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s assessment that Comey had “usurped” the authority of the Justice Department by announcing the initial closure of the investigation and recommending that no criminal charges be brought.
Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee this year that he felt compelled to make the recommendation to close the investigation because he believed that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch had compromised herself when she met with former president Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in the midst of the email inquiry.
At one point, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., suggested that Trump was using Sessions as part of “a façade” to provide cover to the president for firing Comey over his handling of the Russia inquiry.
“I’m not part of a façade,’’ Sessions said.
Sessions said he had not been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.