AG steps away from Russia probes
CONFLICTS
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that he will recuse himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which would include any Russian interference in the electoral process.
Speaking at a hastily called news conference at the Justice Department, Sessions said he was following the recommendation of department ethics officials after an evaluation of the rules and cases in which he might have a conflict.
“They said that since I had
involvement with the (Trump) campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” Sessions said. He added that he concurred with their assessment.
The announcement comes a day after The Washington Post revealed that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and did not disclose that fact to Congress during his confirmation hearing in January.
Democrats have been calling for Sessions to recuse himself for weeks; on Thursday, following publication of The Post’s story, some high-level Republicans joined them. At his news conference, Sessions offered a new explanation: that discussions about his recusal had begun before the revelation of his meetings with Kislyak, that he and ethics officials had agreed on Monday to meet for a final time Thursday, and that at that final meeting he had accepted their recommendation.
The revelations about Sessions’ meetings with Kislyak brought new scrutiny to the attorney general’s confirmation hearing in January, when he was asked by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign had communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign. He replied: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians.”
On Thursday, Sessions defended those remarks as “honest and correct as I understood it at the time,” though he also said he would “write the Judiciary Committee soon — today or tomorrow — to explain this testimony for the record.” His explanation, he said, was that he was “taken aback” by Franken’s question, which referred to a breaking news story at the time about contacts between Trump surrogates and Russians.
“In retrospect, I should have slowed down and said I did meet one Russian official a couple times. That would be the ambassador,” Sessions said.
Late Thursday, President Donald Trump further defended his attorney general.
“Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional,” Trump said.
“This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win. ... They lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!”
Sessions’ spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, said he did not meet with Kislyak as a Trump supporter, but rather in his capacity as a member of the Armed Services Committee. One meeting was in September; the other in July, when Sessions was approached after an event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
A Justice Department official said Wednesday of the September meeting: “There’s just not strong recollection of what was said.”
On Thursday, though, Sessions outlined fairly extensive details of the encounter, which also included two senior Sessions staffers. He said he talked with the ambassador about a trip he made to Russia in 1991, terrorism and Ukraine — a major policy issue following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the imposition of U.S. and European Union sanctions on Russia for its actions.
“Most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy, and this was in the campaign season, but I don’t recall any specific political discussions,” Sessions said.
Earlier Thursday, Trump said that he had “total” confidence in Sessions. Speaking aboard an aircraft carrier in Newport News, Virginia, Trump said he was not aware of Sessions’ contact with the Russian ambassador and didn’t think Sessions should recuse himself.
Several Republican lawmakers, including Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, had already called on Sessions to recuse himself — and some of them applauded him after he did so.
Portman said Sessions’ decision “will enhance the credibility of the investigation into Russia’s attempts to meddle in the election.”
Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, said Sessions “made the right decision to uphold the integrity of the ongoing bipartisan investigations into Russia.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, however, repeated his earlier call for Sessions to resign.
“You don’t lie under oath to a committee, then become attorney general and think you can serve when it’s found out. These are colossal lies and a colossal betrayal of the American public, and he needs to resign because of that.”
It is the second time in Trump’s nascent administration when the truthfulness of one of its officials has come under scrutiny. In February, Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn after he did not fully disclose his contacts with Russian officials.