Attorney General Jeff Sessions is once again under scrutiny on Capitol Hill regarding his candor about Russia and the Trump campaign amid revelations that he rejected a suggestion to convene a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump last year.
According to court filings unsealed this week, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos suggested at a March 2016 meeting that he could use his connections to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump with the then-GOP candidate's national security team. An Instagram picture on Trump's account shows Sessions attended the meeting at which Papadopoulos made the suggestion.
After Trump declined to rule out the idea, Sessions weighed in and rejected the proposed meeting, according to a person who attended.
But Sessions, who was a top surrogate for Trump during the campaign, did not disclose these discussions despite a persistent set of questions from Democrats and some Republicans about Russia during multiple hearings on Capitol Hill. The new information is renewing attention to how forthcoming Sessions has been with Congress.
That put Al Franken on Jeff Session's trail like an angry bloodhound.
Courtesy of TPM:
“Once again, developments in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have brought to light evidence that you failed to tell the truth about your interactions with Russian operatives during the campaign, as well as your awareness of Russian contacts by other members of the Trump campaign team,” Franken wrote.
He called it “another example in an alarming pattern” in which Sessions “apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, about the Trump team’s contacts with agents of Russia—a hostile foreign power that interfered in the 2016 election.”
“We must get to the bottom of what happened so that we can prevent it from happening again,” Franken wrote. “I am deeply troubled that this newest revelation strongly suggests that the Senate—and the American public—cannot trust your word.”
Yeah, shit meet fan.
That apparently jogged the Keebler Elf's memory.
Oh, THAT meeting!JUST IN: Sessions now recalls rejecting Russia trip for Papadopoulos, sources tell NBC News https://t.co/VjYd3CGUpY— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 2, 2017
But, believe it or not, things got even worse.
Also courtesy of CNN:
Former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page privately testified Thursday that he mentioned to Jeff Sessions he was traveling to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign — as new questions emerge about the attorney general's comments to Congress about Russia and the Trump campaign.
During more than six hours of closed-door testimony, Page said that he informed Sessions about his coming July 2016 trip to Russia, which Page told CNN was unconnected to his campaign role. Page described the conversation to CNN after he finished talking to the House intelligence committee.
Sessions' discussion with Page will fuel further scrutiny about what the attorney general knew about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia — and communications about Russia that he did not disclose despite a persistent line of questioning in three separate hearings this year.
Yes I think "fucked" is really the only description that adequately sums up Jeff Sessions' situation right now.
If past is prologue this means that Sessions days with his administration are numbered, but that could introduce an entirely new problem because with Sessions gone Trump will be allowed to pick his successor, and that successor may have no qualms about trying to shut down the Mueller investigation.
Source http://ift.tt/2zuqtjB
