Sessions’ recusal doesn’t explain his evasions on Russia
Charges of Russian interference in the presidential election continue to hover over the Trump presidency like a dark cloud. Thursday, it rained down again. Less than two days after the president’s well-received address to Congress, the White House was roiled by revelations of meetings during the campaign between the Russian ambassador and Jeff Sessions, then a senator and Trump adviser and now the attorney general.
At the end of a tumultuous day, as prominent Republicans joined Democrats in calling for Sessions to remove himself from any Justice Department investigation of Russian meddling, Sessions did what he had to do and should have already done: He announced his recusal, saying, “I feel like ... I should not be involved investigating a campaign I had a role in.”
No kidding, especially now that Sessions could become a subject of an inquiry into whether he gave false statements under oath during his confirmation hearings in January.
There’s nothing wrong, of course, with senators interacting with foreign officials. But as so often happens in Washington, Sessions’ predicament is less about the original acts — meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, one during the Republican convention in July and one in his Senate office in September — than the impression that he tried to cover them up.
Asked during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing what he’d do if he learned that anyone with the campaign had communicated with the Russian government, Sessions volunteered, “I did not have communications with the Russians.”
On Thursday, Sessions maintained that his reply at the Senate hearing was “honest and correct,” while allowing that he “should have slowed down” and mentioned his meetings with the ambassador. Maybe in some lawyerly, hair-splitting context, Sessions didn’t perjure himself. But citizens expect more from the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
Whether Sessions will be able to keep his job, or be forced to resign like former national security adviser Michael Flynn, remains to be seen. The question for investigators is why Flynn, and now Sessions, felt compelled to dissemble about their dealings with Kislyak.
That feeds into a broader issue: How to get an independent, impartial investigation into this politically sensitive Russian issue.
To find facts about the Russian role in the 2016 election, congressional leaders should name a select, Watergate-style committee of highly respected members from both parties and perhaps from both chambers. Any evidence of criminal wrongdoing would be referred to the Justice Department, where a high-ranking career official, not a political appointee, should appoint a special counsel, someone respected for integrity and independence.
Contrary to White House denials, mounting evidence points to a variety of meetings between Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign. Hanging over it all is Trump’s bizarre reluctance to criticize Vladimir Putin, Russia’s autocratic thug of a leader.
Jeff Sessions’ evasions are just one piece of a much larger puzzle.