Democrat criticizes Sessions’ nonanswer on talks with Trump

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee says Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not directly answer in a closed-door interview Thursday whether President Donald Trump ever asked him to hinder the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian interference.

Sessions’ refusal to answer the question from California Rep. Adam Schiff during the committee’s interview was in line with his previous responses to lawmakers’ questions in several open hearings earlier this year. He has repeatedly said he will not discuss any conversations with Trump, saying he was adhering to longstanding tradition of Justice Department leaders to refrain from revealing the contents of private conversations with the president.

Schiff said it is “disturbing” that Sessions wouldn’t answer that particular question.

“Congress has a need to know and so do the American people,” Schiff said.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions, pushed back on Schiff’s comments, saying the attorney general told the committee that he has “never been directed to do anything illegal or improper.”

Sessions’ appearance is part of the House panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether there are any links to Trump’s campaign. Sessions has previously testified on the issue in open hearings in three other congressional committees.

Lawmakers have been interested in Sessions’ knowledge of contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign as well as Sessions’ own contacts with Russians. He told the House Judiciary Committee this month in an open hearing that sleep deprivation and the “chaos” of the presidential campaign clouded his recollections of contacts with Russians.

At his January confirmation hearing, the former Alabama senator said he “did not have communications” with Russians during the campaign and that he was “unaware” of contacts between others in the campaign and Russia. But he later acknowledged two previously undisclosed encounters with the Russian ambassador in Washington.

The questions have only deepened since the guilty plea last month of George Papadopoulos, a former Trump adviser who served on the council Sessions chaired and who proposed arranging a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.