AG takes his turn in Russia probe spotlight
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions, facing fresh questions about his Russian contacts during the election campaign and his role in the firing of James Comey, will testify Tuesday in a public hearing before Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sessions’ appearance before the committee comes one week after former FBI Director Comey told lawmakers the bureau had expected Sessions to recuse himself weeks before he did from an investigation into contacts between
Trump campaign associates and Russia during the 2016 election.
Sessions, a close campaign adviser to Donald 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. He said under
SESSIONS
oath at his January confirmation hearing that he had not met with Russians during the campaign.
Since then, lawmakers have raised questions about a possible third meeting at a Washington hotel, though the Justice Department has said that did not happen.
Sessions said Saturday that he would appear before the committee,
which has been doing its own investigation into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.
There had been some question as to whether the hearing would be open to the public, but the Justice Department said Monday that he had requested it be so because he “believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him.” The committee said shortly after that the hearing would be open.
The hearing will bring sharp questioning for Sessions.
He is likely to be asked about his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and whether there were more encounters that should have been made public.
And he can expect questions about his involvement in Comey’s May 9 firing, the circumstances surrounding his decision to recuse himself from the FBI’S investigation and whether any of his actions, such as interviewing candidates for the FBI director position or meeting with Trump about Comey, violated
his recusal pledge.
Asked Monday whether the White House thought Sessions should invoke executive privilege to avoid answering questions about his conversations with Trump, presidential spokesman Sean Spicer replied that “it depends on the scope of the questions. To get into a hypothetical at this point would be premature.”
He did not explicitly endorse Sessions’ appearance, saying in response to a question, “We’re aware of it, and we’ll go from there.”