Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Didn’t collude, AG testifies
Russian link called lie; on Trump, he’s mainly mum
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions offered a defense Tuesday against what he called “an appalling and detestable lie” that he may have colluded with the Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election.
Showcasing his loyalty to President Donald Trump in a Senate hearing but declining to answer central questions about his or the president’s conduct, Sessions insisted repeatedly that it would be
“inappropriate” to discuss his private conversations with Trump, however relevant they might be.
“I am not able to discuss with you or confirm or deny the nature of private conversations that I may have had with the president on this subject or others,” said Sessions, a former senator from Alabama.
Sessions opened his testimony to the panel with a fiery assertion that he never had any conversations with Russians about “any type of interference” in the 2016 presidential election.
“The suggestion that I participated in any collusion … is an appalling and detestable lie,” Sessions said.
Sessions took particular aim at news reports about a possible meeting he had with a Russian official during an April 2016 event at the Mayflower
hotel, where Trump gave a pro- Russia speech. He acknowledged being at the event and said he had conversations with those there but did not remember any with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“If any brief interaction occurred in passing with the Russian ambassador during that reception, I do not remember it,” Sessions said. If he did have a conversation with the ambassador, it was “certainly nothing improper,” he said.
Sessions acknowledged that he had met twice with Kislyak — once during the Republican National Convention and once in his Senate office — and that he did not disclose that during his confirmation hearing. But he said essentially that he was flustered by a question from Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., about an alleged “continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government,” and that is why he claimed wrongly that he had not met with Russians.
“I wanted to refute that immediately,” Sessions said.
Sessions also said he does not remember any other meetings with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Committee member Tom Cotton, R-Ark., ridiculed the idea that Sessions may have colluded with the Russian ambassador, and then pivoted to “the potential crimes that we know have happened.”
Cotton then listed a series of leaks. Among those he mentioned were the contents of alleged transcripts of calls between Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and Kislyak and of accounts of Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian officials last month. At that meeting, the president reportedly disclosed sensitive information about an Israeli intelligence source in the Islamic State and bragged that firing FBI Director James Comey, whom he called a
“nut job,” had relieved great pressure on him about the Russia investigation.
That invited Sessions to talk about criminal leak investigations. He invoked as a “successful case” the charges filed earlier this month against Reality Leigh Winner, a contractor with the National Security Agency who is accused of sending an intelligence report about election-related Russian hacking to reporters, and he suggested there would be more like that, saying “some of these leaks, as you well know, are extraordinarily damaging to the United States’ national security.”
Saying intelligence officials’ leaking of sensitive matters “is already resulting in investigations,” Sessions added, “I fear that some people may find that they wish they hadn’t leaked.”
‘NOT STONEWALLING’
The attorney general has recused himself from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation — a decision he sought to cast on Tuesday as resulting from his role on the Trump campaign, rather than because of any inappropriate interaction with Russian officials.
“I recused myself from any investigation into the campaign for president,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own investigation into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. “I did not recuse myself from defending my honor against scurrilous and false allegations.”
Pressed on his rationale, Sessions said Trump had not invoked executive privilege concerning the testimony of his attorney general.
“I am protecting the right of the president to assert it if he chooses,” Sessions said.
“I don’t understand how you can have it both ways,” said Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. “You’ve testified that only the president can assert it. I just don’t understand the legal basis for your refusal to answer.”
At one point, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., suggested the attorney general was ducking questions, angering Sessions.
“I believe the American people have had it with stonewalling. Americans don’t want to hear that answers to relevant questions are privileged or off-limits,” said Wyden. “We are talking about an attack on our democratic institutions, and stonewalling of any kind is unacceptable.”
Sessions shot back: “I am not stonewalling. I am following the historic policies of the Department of Justice.”
Wyden noted that Comey had said it was “problematic” for Sessions to oversee the Russia probe, for reasons he did not explain in a public setting.
Sessions got angry again when Wyden pressed him to explain what facts might be “problematic “about his involvement in the Russia probe, as Comey suggested.
“Why don’t you tell me? There are none, Sen. Wyden. There are none. This is a secret innuendo being leaked out there about me, and I don’t appreciate it and I’ve tried to give my best and truthful answers,” Sessions said. “People are suggesting through innuendo that I have been not honest … and I’ve tried to be honest.”
COMEY INFLUENCE
Sessions spoke from the same hearing room where Comey testified last week that Trump had tried to derail an investigation into contacts with Russia by Flynn, who was forced out of his national security job in February after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
In his testimony, Comey, whom Trump fired last month, also accused the president of lying and defaming him and the FBI.
That testimony colored much of Tuesday’s hearing, with Democrats pressing Sessions on several key elements of Comey’s account. Among the questions: Why was Sessions involved in Comey’s firing — months after Sessions had removed himself from involvement in the investigations after failing to disclose his past contacts with the Russian ambassador?
“It is absurd, frankly,” Sessions began, “to suggest that a recusal from a single specific investigation would render the attorney general unable to manage the leadership of the various Department of Justice law enforcement components that conduct thousands of investigations.”
Sessions also addressed Comey’s recollection of a private meeting in February with Trump, in which Comey said the president pressured him to drop the Flynn investigation. Trump asked to be left alone with Comey, the former director has said. Sessions stayed behind at first but then left, according to Comey. He later told Sessions to never again leave him alone with Trump.
On Tuesday, Sessions seemed to confirm at least fragments of Comey’s rendering.
“I do recall being one of the last ones to leave,” he said. “I don’t know how that occurred.”
But Sessions said he did not see the arrangement as “a major problem,” calling Comey an experienced official who “could handle himself well.”
Comey, in his own appearance before the same panel last week, said he “implored” Sessions to make sure he was never left alone with the president again — but that Sessions didn’t respond.
Sessions contradicted that contention.
“He didn’t recall this, but I responded to his comment by agreeing that the FBI and Department of Justice needed to be careful to follow department policy regarding appropriate contacts with the White House,” Sessions said.
On another issue, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked Sessions whether Trump records his conversations in the White House. Trump has suggested there might be tapes of his encounters with Comey; Comey said last week that, “lordy,” he hopes there are.
“I do not,” Sessions said when asked if he knows whether the president records his conversations.
Would any such tapes have to be preserved? “I don’t know, Sen. Rubio, probably so,” Sessions replied.