Sessions steps aside from Russia-contact probe
He ‘misled’ Congress on envoy meeting
Donald Trump, who had spoken earlier aboard a new aircraft carrier in Newport News, Virginia, stayed on the plane during the televised event, emerging only after Sessions finished answering questions.
The White House has stood behind Sessions, though officials say they first learned about his contacts with the ambassador from a reporter Wednesday night. Trump said he had “total” confidence in Sessions and did not think he needed to step aside from the investigation.
The Justice Department has maintained there was nothing improper about Sessions’ contacts or his answers to Congress, while the continuing allegations of Russian interference in American politics spurred Democratic calls for Sessions not only to recuse himself but to resign.
Sessions has faced increasing demands that he resolve the seeming contradiction between his two conversations in the summer and fall with Moscow’s US envoy, Sergey Kislyak, and his sworn statements to Congress in January, when he said he had not had communications with Russians during the campaign.
While there is nothing necessarily nefarious or even unusual about a member of Congress meeting with a foreign ambassador, typically members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meet with foreign ambassadors, not Armed Services Committee lawmakers, whose responsibility is oversight of the military and the Pentagon. Congressional contact with Russian officials was limited after the invasion of Crimea and due to Moscow’s close relationship with Syria, a pariah for much of the West
Calling for Sessions to resign, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi accused him of “lying under oath.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a special prosecutor should be appointed to examine whether the federal investigation into the Kremlin’s meddling in the US election — and into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russians — had been compromised by Sessions. Democrats also sought a criminal perjury investigation.
And more than a half dozen Republican lawmakers, including some who consider themselves personally close to Sessions, urged him to recuse himself from the Justice Department probe. They include Sen. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who said that though he found it impossible to believe that Sessions could have colluded with Russia, “if there is an investigation, he probably shouldn’t be the person leading it.”