Attorney General Jeff Sessions has accepted an invitation to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.
Former FBI Director James Comey hinted in his public hearing Thursday that Sessions, a former USA senator from Alabama, may have had additional contacts with Russians, and said in a closed hearing that investigators had received Russian intercepts detailing a possible third meeting between Sessions and Kislyak, sources familiar with the briefing told CNN on Thursday.
Mr. Sessions had planned to appear before the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees, but the deputy attorney general will take his place, the letter said. Sessions, whose contacts with Russia's ambassador to the USA during the presidential campaign has sparked questions, agreed Saturday, June 10, to appear before the Senate intelligence committee as it investigates alleged Russian meddling in the election.
In his testimony, Comey said that he could not go to Sessions with his concerns about President Donald Trump's attempts to stop the Russia investigation because he knew that Sessions was about to be exposed as acting on the Russian government's behalf and was therefore not to be trusted.
If, as the president said, I was sacked because of the Russian Federation investigation, why was the attorney general involved in that chain? Comey also testified that he wrote memos detailing that meeting and others with Trump because he was concerned that the president "might lie about the nature of our meeting", he told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
Comey's testimony raised lingering questions surrounding Sessions' recusal from the FBI's Russian Federation probe.
Lawmakers, including Al Franken of Minnesota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, have asked the FBI to investigate and to determine if Sessions committed perjury when he denied having had meetings with Russians. Sessions refused. He may also be under a cloud of suspicion after Comey, in his devastating testimony, suggested the attorney general may have failed to take appropriate steps to protect the Federal Bureau of Investigation chief.
Restore devolution or face return of direct rule, Foster tells Sinn Fein
I find it very, very hard to see how Tim Farron would be able to go back on what he previously said", Mr Campbell told the BBC. The SDLP and UUP lost all their seats, with Michelle Gildernew toppling the UUP's Tom Elliot in Fermanagh South Tyrone.
He wrote that "it is important that I have an opportunity to address these matters in the appropriate forum".
The Justice Department has said that while Sessions was there, for a speech by Trump, there were no meetings or private encounters.
During the closed portion of Comey's appearance Thursday, CNN reports, he testified that Russian intercepts indicated that Sessions had an "unreported third meeting" with Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign.
Briefing congressional appropriators on the Justice Department's budget is a critical part of the attorney general's job. The fact that Sessions would delegate that task to his deputy showed the Russian Federation investigation was distracting him from his core duties.
It would be "fitting" for the attorney general to appear before Judiciary, Feinstein, the top Democrat on that panel, said on CNN.
File image of Jeff Sessions.
Comments