Claire McCaskill, a Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she’s not aware of any contact between members of that committee and the Russian ambassador in the last decade, a comment that could undermine Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ claim that his meeting with the ambassador had nothing to do with the campaign.
I’ve been on the Armed Services Com for 10 years.No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel Com.
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) March 2, 2017
Sessions reportedly met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last year while serving as both a senator and adviser to President Trump’s campaign — after telling the Senate Judiciary Committee in January that he had no contact with Russians at all. A spokeswoman for Sessions insisted that the communications between he and the ambassador was simply in his capacity as a member of the Armed Services Committee.
But McCaskill said that sort of meeting isn’t normal for members of that committee.
“I’ve been on the Armed Services Com for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever,” McCaskill tweeted early Thursday morning. She added that ambassadors will call members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, rather than the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sessions’ defenders have argued that Sessions was asked in January if he had contacts with the Russians in the context of the campaign, and that he appeared to be saying he had no meetings with Russians on that issue.
Since the report, numerous Democrats have called on Sessions to either resign as AG or recuse himself from the potential investigation of links between Trump and Russia.
