U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R) will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, marking his first Congressional testimony since his confirmation in February. Sessions’ testimony follows the appearance of former FBI Director James Comey before the same committee, and some senators will likely grill their former Alabama colleague regarding alleged contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.
The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CST.
In early March, Sessions recused himself from current or future investigations regarding the Trump campaign. “I think I should not be involved in an investigation of a campaign I had a role in,” he said.
Sessions has repeatedly denied allegations of improper contact with Russians. “I never had a meeting with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries during the campaign,” he said.
As Yellowhammer reported in March then-Senator Sessions did meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while the campaign was going on, but he maintains those meetings were part of his duties as a U.S. Senator on the Armed Services committee, and had nothing to do with his campaign. His first exchange with Kislyak was following a speech to foreign ambassadors at the Heritage Foundation and the second was when Kislyak and about twenty other ambassadors visited Sessions’ office. Nevertheless, Democrats claim these meetings contradict Sessions’ testimony in his confirmation hearings, while Sessions adamantly states that he was fully honest during the course of his confirmation hearings, pointing out that his discussions with Kislyak were not related to campaign activities.
Sessions spokesperson Sarah Flores told the Washington Post that there is a difference between campaign and normal senatorial activity. “He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee,” She said.
The Attorney General backed up his original assertion again during a March appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press. “I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign and those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false,” he said. “And I don’t have anything else to say about that.”
Ultimately, Sessions amended his original testimony regarding an answer he gave on the issue to Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). “I did not mention communications I had had with the Russian ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them,” Sessions wrote.
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