Sessions Met Twice With Russian Envoy During Trump Campaign

Attorney General Jeff Sessions had conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. while he was a prominent surrogate for Donald Trump’s election campaign, even though he said during his confirmation hearing that no contacts had occurred, the Justice Department confirmed late Wednesday.

Session said in a statement that he never met with Russian officials to discuss the campaign. "I have no idea what this allegation is about," he said. "It is false."

The revelation prompted top Democrats in Congress to call for his ouster. “After lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the Attorney General must resign,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. 

A Sessions spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, rejected accusations that he had misled lawmakers and portrayed the contacts that he had with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as being part of his work as a senator rather than as a key backer of Trump’s presidential bid.

“Last year, the senator had over 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, including the British, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Indian, Chinese, Canadian, Australian, German and Russian ambassadors,” she said. “He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign --not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee.”

The revelation, reported earlier by the Washington Post, has raised fresh questions about which Trump associates had contacts with Russian government officials during the presidential campaign and what was discussed. It also intensified calls for Sessions to recuse himself from investigations into Russian hacking in last year’s campaign. 

‘Recuse Himself’

“If reports are accurate that Attorney General Sessions -- a prominent surrogate for Donald Trump -- met with Ambassador Kislyak during the campaign, and failed to disclose this fact during his confirmation, it is essential that he recuse himself from any role in the investigation of Trump campaign ties to the Russians,” Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “This is not even a close call; it is a must.”

As an Alabama Republican senator, Sessions was visited by Kislyak in his Capitol Hill office on Sept. 8, the Justice Department said in its statement. He also met with the envoy as part of a small group of ambassadors after an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation in July at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The Justice Department rejected suggestions that Sessions was misleading in his testimony, saying that as a senator he discussed relations between the U.S. and Russia during the September meeting with Kislyak. Ambassadors would often make superficial comments about election-related news, but those was not the substance of discussions, the department said.

Confirmation Hearing

Sessions was asked during a Jan. 10 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee what he would do if he learned that anyone tied to the Trump campaign had communicated with the Russian government during the course of the campaign.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” he said, adding that he had "been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said during a CNN town hall Wednesday night that Sessions should recuse himself from any inquiries.

“I don’t know that there’s anything between the Trump campaign and the Russians. I’m not going to base my decision based on newspaper articles,” Graham said. “If there is something there, and it goes up the chain of investigation, it is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump.”

Samantha Reed Smith (June 29, 1972 – August 25, 1985) was an American schoolgirl, peace activist and child actress from Manchester, Maine, who became famous in the Cold War era United States and Soviet Union. In 1982, Smith wrote a letter to the newly appointed CPSU General Secretary Yuri Andropov and received a personal reply with a personal invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which she accepted.

Smith attracted extensive media attention in both countries as a "Goodwill Ambassador" and became known as "America's Youngest Ambassador" participating in peacemaking activities in Japan.^[1] She wrote a book about her visit to the Soviet Union and co-starred in the television series Lime Street, before her death at the age of 13 in the Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 plane crash

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