With new revelations raising questions about Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ prior testimony about the Trump campaign’s contact with Russians, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Thursday that perjury could be in Sessions’ future.
“It’s serious stuff,” Schumer told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow after she laid out the history of Sessions’ evolving testimony about his communications with Russians and whether he knew the Trump campaign had been in contact them. Sessions, previously a senator from Alabama, served as a foreign policy adviser to President Trump’s campaign.
“Perjury is a very careful standard, but it’s something that would be looked at,” Schumer added.
Schumer on Sessions’ evolving Russia testimony: Perjury is something that would be looked at.#Maddow pic.twitter.com/pgYGGH6B1t
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) November 3, 2017
A number of Democrats — including Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — have called on Sessions to return and testify, after documents unsealed this week, reported by CNN, appeared to dispute Sessions’ prior testimony. In that testimony, he denied knowing about a proposed meeting between Russians and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
Further escalating concerns about Sessions’ transparency, former Trump campaign aide Carter Page told investigators with the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday that Sessions was aware that he was traveling to Russia in June 2016. However, Page told the Washington Examiner the trip “was as irrelevant then as it is now.”
A number of congressional panels, including House Intelligence, and a federal inquiry headed by special counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Schumer admitted he has not taken a hard look at the latest reports, saying he only heard “secondhand” what was reported.
“I’d want to see all the facts before coming to a judgment, but it’s serious enough just seeing a cursory description,” he said, adding that he agrees with his Democratic colleagues that Sessions has “got to come back.”
