An ethics group is calling on all senators to release the names and dates of their meetings with ambassadors over the last three years in the wake of the firestorm over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ discussions with the Russian ambassador last year that he did not disclose during his confirmation hearings.
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust’s Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney appointed by President George W. Bush, is defending Sessions against charges he should resign or further recuse himself and wants to put the news of Sessions’ meeting with the Russian ambassador in the proper context.
Whitaker called on all senators to “immediately” release the dates of all their meetings with ambassadors.
“If we are going to have a national discussion about senators meeting with ambassadors, it is appropriate for all senators to disclose who they met with so the public, and apparently the media, understand that all Sen. Sessions did was his job,” Whitaker said in a statement Friday afternoon.
Whitaker said Sessions correctly stated that meeting with ambassadors to the United Sates from other countries was part of his job as a U.S. senator. In fact, Sessions met with two dozen ambassadors in 2016 and met with the Ukrainian ambassador the day before he met with the Russian ambassador.
Other senators, including Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who initially criticized Sessions for meeting with the Russian ambassador and said it wasn’t common for someone on the Armed Services Committee to do, was forced to acknowledge tweets showing that she had also met with the same ambassador in 2013 after insisting she hadn’t.
White House visitor logs, which President Barack Obama made public in 2009 in a transparency push, show that same Russian ambassador visited the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016, the Daily Caller reported Thursday.
