U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says if it is “appropriate” he would recuse himself from his agency’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.
The former senator was recently sworn in as the country’s top law enforcement official, after being one of President Donald Trump’s top surrogates during his run to the White House.
He is facing calls from some lawmakers to resign or at least recuse himself from the investigation due to his denial at his January Senate confirmation hearing that he knew of any Trump campaign communications with Russian officials.
Since then it has been disclosed Sessions met Moscow’s ambassador to Washington twice last year, when he was a senator.
“I have said whenever it is appropriate, I will recuse myself. There is no doubt about that,” Sessions told NBC News.
Sessions met Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in July at an event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention, and again in September at his Capitol Hill office.
His aides late Wednesday acknowledged Sessions’s contacts with Kislyak, but said they were not meetings between the Trump campaign and Russia, but rather discussions Sessions held as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sessions had testified under oath at the confirmation hearing, “I have been called a surrogate a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have, did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”
WATCH: Sessions tells Senator Franken he had no contact with Russian officials during confirmation hearing
SEN AL FRANKEN (D-MN):” Extremely serious. If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”
SEN SESSIONS (R-AL): “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have, did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”
Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat who asked Sessions at the confirmation hearings about any Russian contacts he had had, told CNN, “He made a bald statement, that during the campaign he had not met with the Russians. That’s not true. It’s extremely misleading at the most charitable.”
FILE – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Accused of lying under oath
The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, accused Sessions of “lying under oath” during his confirmation proceedings.
“The attorney general must resign,” Pelosi wrote in a statement. “There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal and financial connections to the Russians.” Congressman Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, also called on Sessions to resign, as did Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Some Republicans agreed with Democrats he should remove himself from any oversight of the probe into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
A key Republican, Congressman Kevin McCarthy, said Thursday “it would be easier” for an investigation into ties between the Russian government and Trump’s campaign if Sessions recused himself from it.
Another Republican, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, said Sessions should clarify his testimony and remove himself from the investigation.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent Republican who served with Sessions on the Armed Services Committee, said during a CNN town hall event Wednesday that an independent investigator should be in charge of the probe.
“It is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump,” Graham said. “There may be nothing there, but if there’s something there, if the FBI believes there’s criminal nature, then for sure you need a special prosecutor.”
National security adviser General Michael Flynn delivers a statement daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Feb. 1, 2017.
Flynn ouster over Russia links
Trump’s early administration has already seen the resignation of his first national security adviser over links to Russia. Trump ousted Michael Flynn after just 24 days on the job after information emerged that he had lied to top officials about the nature of his own conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Trump has denied multiple reports that people connected to his campaign had connections with members of the Russian government during the election season.
But Sessions had his defenders, too.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who unsuccessfully fought Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, told MSNBC that Sessions’s testimony was “unfortunate. He didn’t speak as clearly as he should have.”
However, Cruz said, “Context is important. The underlying meeting (with the Russian ambassador) is a nothing burger. The underlying meeting is simply doing his job. That’s part of being a senator.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Feb. 7, 2017.
White House defends Sessions
A White House official said the talks were held in Sessions’s official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee which is “entirely consistent with his testimony” during his confirmation hearing. The official accused “partisan Democrats” of launching another attack against the Trump administration.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is part of the Justice Department that Sessions heads, is investigating Russian activities aimed at disrupting the U.S. election to help Trump win and any possible links between the Trump campaign and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Senate intelligence committee is carrying out its own probe, and the House intelligence committee announced parameters for its investigation on Wednesday.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded last year that Russia meddled in the election to help Trump win.
They said Moscow hacked into the computer of the campaign chief of Democrat Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state Trump defeated in the election. Then, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks released thousands of the emails in the weeks before the election showing embarrassing, behind-the-scenes efforts by Democratic officials to help Clinton win the party’s presidential nomination.
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