It’s one of the two biggest political celebrations in politics. Every four years, the GOP throws the Republican National Convention, a weeklong rager complete with political speeches, political protests and political nominations. But Jeff Sessions went for apolitical reasons.
At least, that’s what the White House would have the nation believe. Recently President Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer argued that when Sessions met a Russian ambassador during the Cleveland convention last July, the Alabama senator was acting in a legislative, not political, role.
That is a similar answer to the one the attorney general gave during his confirmation hearing. Asked if he ever met with Russian officials, Sessions said no but with a caveat. He had not met with them in a campaign capacity. And maybe that’s technically true. Still, it doesn’t seem exactly honest. What’s more it raises an important question, namely what did Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak want with Sessions?
It could’ve been that Sergei asked Sessions to talk about Senate business. Feasibly, the Russian was curious about how the Committee on Public Works would fix the country’s crumbling infrastructure. Maybe, he wanted to know about how the Judiciary Committee would handle the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Perhaps, he was interested in whether the Budget Committee could finally get the appropriations process off the ground.
All of those are technically possible. None of them seem likely. Instead, the evidence points to a different conclusion.
Long before he touched down at Sheraton Cleveland Airport, Sessions was already a top lieutenant in the Trump campaign. The fiery southerner had delivered dozens of speeches on the stump, chaired the candidate’s National Advisory Security Committee, and was personally going to nominate Trump for president. Clearly, Sessions was in Cleveland for political reasons.
The paperwork sheds further light on the obvious nature of his visit. To make the trip, Sessions took money from his campaign account. He made two withdrawals, the Wall Street Journal first reported, a $1,395 charge for the flight and a $223 charge for lodging.
It’s unthinkable that he’d discuss anything except the Trump campaign when he briefly rubbed shoulders with the Russian ambassador.
Does that mean that he’s guilty of meeting covertly with a Kremlin spy? Not at all. The two spoke briefly after an educational event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in partnership with the State Department. Does it mean that his confirmation answers aren’t completely true? Probably. And that’s a shame.
By hushing the meeting, Sessions made it politically sensational and opened himself up to attack. Because he didn’t come clean, the attorney general must now recuse himself from any investigations involving Russia and watch his back. If he’d admitted the obvious, he wouldn’t have to worry.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
