The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the recently (and controversially) appointed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath about having contact with Russia during the election. In fact, Sessions had two meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump’s campaign. Sessions did not disclose the meetings during his confirmation process.
One of those meetings occurred in Sessions’ senatorial office in September 2016, just as information about Russian intereference was becoming public and heated. And yet, during his confirmation hearing, Sessions told Senator Al Franken that he had absoloutly no contact with Russian authorities during the campaign.
Lying under oath is a very serious offense, and one that could result in severe consequences for Sessions.
In response to the article, Sessions stated that he did not consider the conversation with Kislyak to be important, so he decided to omit it from his answer… A likely story. This has made many Americans uneasy, especially in light of other Russian influences. And there has been widespread call for Sessions’ resignation.
With Sessions in charge of the Justice Department, he is overseeing the FBI, which is currently investigating Trump’s ties to Russia. Many have called for Sessions to bring in an independent prosecutor in for the case and recuse himself from it, to eliminate any possible conflicts of interest. Sessions has shown no signs of doing so.
If Sessions had to resign his position because of this, it would be the second officer appointed by Trump to have been forced from their position because of ties with Russia (the first being Michael Flynn). How deep does this scandal go? All the way to the top. There’s a reason Donald Trump has’t released his tax returns, a VERY “big league” problem for the Donald.