Sessions: Nothing Improper About 2016 Meetings With Russian Ambassador

But if questions coming into Tuesday's hearing were, "How would Sessions respond to fired FBI Director James Comey's intimation that there was something else - something classified - about Sessions to be concerned about?" or "What more do we know about President Trump's role in firing Comey or putting pressure on officials to drop the Russian Federation investigation?" there wasn't much light shed on them.

Eastern Michigan University Political Science professor Ed Sidlow says there were no fireworks like there were last week with former FBI Director James Comey over conversations with President Donald Trump that Comey believed were meant to have him stop further investigation into Russian interference in US politics.

Sessions testified Tuesday that he recused himself from the current Russian Federation investigation only because of a regulation that required it because of his involvement in the Trump campaign.

"The suggestion that I participated in any collusion.to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process is an appalling and detestable lie", Sessions said. Sessions said Trump had not invoked executive privilege regarding the conversations.

Shortly after his opening, Sessions said that if he had talked with Kislyak, "It would've been certainly, I can assure you, nothing improper, if I'd had a conversation with him". Sessions called the conversations "confidential" but stopped short of invoking executive privilege, saying the privilege could only be invoked by the president.

"You are obstructing that congressional investigation by not answering that question", charged Senator Martin Heinrich.

"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", Comey said.

Sessions said he met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, once at last year's Republican National Convention and later in his Senate office, but neither time about Trump's campaign, but rather in his capacity as a USA senator at the time before Trump nominated him as the country's top law enforcement official.

Sessions said on Tuesday he did not recuse himself because he felt he was a subject of the investigation himself but rather because he felt he was required to by Justice Department rules. In the original recusal announcement, the attorney general said he would distance himself from investigations relating to both 2016 campaigns, not just Trump's.

Rosenstein said that if the president ordered him to fire Mueller, he would comply only if the request was "lawful and appropriate".

Comey, who at the time was the nation's top criminal investigator, chose to take notes after his unusually frequent meetings with Trump, he said, because of the "nature of the person" he was dealing with.

The real audience: Jeremy Bash, a lawyer and former Obama national security official, told Brian Williams on MSNBC: "I think Mueller could use a grand jury and overcome this [implied] claim of executive privilege".

Asked about media reports that he had met with Kislyak on a third occasion at a Washington hotel past year, Sessions testified that did not remember meeting or having a conversation with the ambassador at the event.

The meeting was one of 25 meetings with foreign ambassadors Sessions held in 2016, Sessions said.

That decision left Comey in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whom Trump famously then fired because he had "Russia on his mind".

"With no evidence of collusion, wrongdoing, or obstruction of justice by President Trump or the White House, how much longer is this going to go on", said Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, praising Sessions's "honesty and professionalism". Trump - while not under oath, it's worth noting - has insisted flatly that he had never urged Comey to slow or stop the Flynn investigation. "I have not had that discussion with him", the press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters. Unless there are tapes of the conversations between Trump and Comey, it would then be a question of whose account is more credible.

When the committee gets an answer to that question, it will be a lot closer to getting to the bottom of the Russian Federation collusion allegation than it is today. Sessions only started meeting with ambassadors (including Kislyak) after he was named a Trump adviser, and it's pretty clear they were seeking him out as a Trump adviser more than as a USA senator.

Sessions criticized Comey for not raising his concerns with the acting attorney general after the February 14 Oval Office meeting when Trump, according to Comey, asked the FBI to back off its investigation of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Instead, Sessions cited "longstanding" Justice Department policy as his reason for declining to comment.

These gave rise to allegations that Sessions might have deliberately omitted his meetings with Kislyak in his confirmation testimony, as well as in written questions submitted after the hearing and on his security clearance form (where he omitted many of his meetings with ambassadors).

In the afternoon, President Donald J. Trump will depart the White House en route to the Department of Labor.

"I do not" Sessions said when asked whether he knows whether the president records his conversations.