Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, reiterated his assertion that he correctly answered questions at his confirmation hearing about Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.
Sessions wrote the letter on Monday as an amendment to the testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing, in which he told Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., that he had no contacts with Russians reaching out to the Trump campaign.
Democrats have called for his resignation after news reports disclosed two meetings between Sessions and the Russian ambassador.
“My answer was correct,” Sessions wrote to the committee Monday.
“I was surprised by the allegations in question, which I had not heard before. I answered the question, which asked about ‘a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government’ honestly,” he said.
Sessions said he did not believe Franken had asked him to disclose any contacts with Russian officials.
“I did not mention communications I had with the Russian ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them,” Sessions wrote.
Soon after the story broke about the Sessions meetings with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, more reporting disclosed many Democrats had also met with Kislyak and other Russian officials, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who met with Putin, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who met with Kislyak.
Sessions also informed the Judiciary Committee in the letter that his decision to recuse himself from any investigation about Russia’s contacts was made prior to the news reports about his meetings with the Russian ambassador. Sessions served as a campaign surrogate for Trump and said last week that was a reason to recuse himself from any probe, although he did not acknowledge such an investigation exists.
So far, intelligence officials said they have found no evidence linking Russian operatives to the Trump campaign, but Democrats are calling for an independent prosecutor.
