Ex-FBI chief James Comey may have done more damage to Attorney General Jeff Sessions than to President Donald Trump in Thursday Senate hearing, as he said that he expected the former Alabama senator to recuse himself from the Russia investigation weeks before he did because of reasons that are classified, NPR reports.
Sessions has been the subject of scrutiny over his failure to disclose meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign, which he has defended as routine, namely as a part of his duties as a U.S. senator.
In his opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey described a private conversation with Trump in the Oval Office shortly after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign, in which Comey recalls the President saying, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
This has raised questions as to why Comey didn’t tell others, including the attorney general. Comey said in his opening statement that his leadership team at the FBI agreed not to share this with Sessions for the following reason: “We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations”.
The question now is why Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, with Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee taking advantage of Comey’s mention of this in his opening statement to raise such questions about Sessions actions.
“He was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. We also were aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic”, said Comey when asked about Sessions interactions with the Russians or his behavior with regard to the investigation.
The prospect of facts that would be problematic for Sessions seems to vary for the reason Sessions himself gave when he recused himself from the Russia probe on March 2.
“I should not be involved in investigating a campaign I had a role in,” Sessions said back in March, when he recused himself from the Russia investigation. His reasoning was that his role as a high-profile surrogate and advisor for the Trump campaign made it inappropriate for him to be involved in an investigation of that same campaign.
Sessions recusal came after he said in his confirmation hearing that he “did not have communications with the Russians”, which wasn’t accurate since he had met with Kislyak twice during 2016.
The Attorney General later said that his misstatement was a result of the fact that he met with Kislyak in his role as a senator involved in foreign policy.
“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said in March.
Sessions will soon face questions from senators, as he is scheduled to testify on Tuesday in a committee hearing about the 2018 budget for the Department of Justice, but it’s a pretty sure that his involvement in the Russia probe will come up, NPR writes.
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