Ousted FBI Director James Comey's testimony last week heavily implicated Session in multiple matters related to the Russian Federation investigation and called into question how thorough his recusal has been from matters relating to the 2016 presidential campaign.
Instead, McCain flummoxed Comey with a question about why "the investigation of anything former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don't have to worry about it anymore?" "You reached separate conclusions", McCain stated.
McCain, in a rambling line of questioning that he sought to clarify first in a televised interview and then in his released statement, was trying to point out that Comey was willing to form an opinion about Clinton's case but not on the current investigation.
Sherman was spotted in the hearing room shaking his head during McCain's awkward questioning that even Comey admitted "confused" him.
He said it was "hard to reconcile" how the FBI concluded the Clinton investigation, while the Trump investigation remained ongoing. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the FBI and other law enforcement bodies, such as the Justice Department's Special Counselor Robert Mueller, are still actively pursuing the investigation.
"These are dark times if the attorney general of the United States is unwilling to answer questions under oath in an open session about his conduct or defend this administration's budget", Schatz said in a statement.
"Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games", the Arizona senior senator wrote in the statement.
A senior Russian lawmaker dismissed Comey's testimony as a 'big bubble'
Many GOP lawmakers continue to make no secret of the fact that the president was not their first choice to be the party's nominee. Asked if he would be willing to go under oath to give his version of the interactions with Comey , Trump replied, "100 percent".
Specifically, Comey said Lynch pressured him to echo language used by Clinton's presidential campaign - which he described as "inaccurate". "Well, I think there's a double standard there to tell you the truth", McCain said.
John McCain, R-Ariz., question former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey as he recounts a series of conversations with President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 8, 2017.
Later, in an attempt to explain why his questions came across disjointed, McCain joked and said he should not have stayed up so late watching the Arizona Diamondbacks.
"There remains a number of questions about his own interactions with the Russians", Republican Senator Susan Collins told CNN over the weekend.
And, if Sessions was aware of the President's rationale, Reed said he expects that senators will ask why he did not remove himself from discussions about Comey.
In a statement after the hearing, McCain clarified he had meant to ask whether Comey believed Trump's interactions with him could be considered obstruction of justice.
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