Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ immediate resignation after it was reported he had two contacts with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 presidential campaign, joining several other prominent Democrats who also pushed for his departure late Wednesday.
The Massachusetts Democrat launched a flurry of tweets late Wednesday night calling his role in leading the Justice Department’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia “a farce,” and pushing for him to step aside so a special prosecutor could conduct the probe.
“It’s a simple q: Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election?” she tweeted, referring to a question Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked during his confirmation hearings.
“Jeff Sessions answered ‘No,’ she recalled. “Turns out he met with the Russian Ambassador. Two months before the election.”
This is not normal. This is not fake news. This is a very real & serious threat to the national security of the United States.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 2, 2017
“Now Jeff Sessions is AG – the final say on the law enforcement investigation into ties between the Trump campaign & Russia? What a farce,” she tweeted.
Warren labeled Sessions’ alleged conflicts of interest when it comes to investigating Russia as a “serious threat to the national security of the United States.”
“This is not normal. This is not fake news. This is a very real & serious threat to the national security of the United States,” she tweeted. “And we need Attorney General Jeff Sessions – who should have never been confirmed in the first place – to resign. We need it now.”
And we need Attorney General Jeff Sessions – who should have never been confirmed in the first place – to resign. We need it now.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 2, 2017
Warren joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in calling for Sessions to step down.
Pelosi, in a statement, said Sessions in now “unfit to serve” as the top law enforcement officer in the country.
Others, including Franken and GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have called for Sessions’ recusal from the FBI’s investigation into Trump campaign and administration contacts with Russia, and whether they were in any way related to Moscow’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee last year in an effort to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused Sessions of perjury after the reports of his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
“It’s not illegal for a senator to speak w the Russian Ambassador. So why lie about it under oath? Makes no sense, unless…” he tweeted Wednesday night.
During Sessions’ confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee in early January, Franken asked Sessions what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign.
Sessions replied: “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians.”
The statement appears to contradict information disclosed by a Sessions spokeswoman last night that Sessions, an Alabama senator before becoming attorney general, spoke with the Russian ambassador twice last year – once briefly and another time during a meeting in his Senate office in September.
Sessions’ Justice Department spokeswoman, Sarah Flores, said the first discussion came when Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak spoke to him briefly after a Heritage Foundation speech he made while attending the Republican National Convention last summer.
Flores argued that the contact at the convention was short and informal. Several ambassadors approached Sessions after a speech at the Heritage Foundation event, including Mr. Kislyak, she said. She emphasized that he was appearing at the event in his capacity as a senator, not a campaign official.
She also said that Sessions was not forced to disclose his later meeting with Kislyak in his Senate office during his confirmation hearing because the meeting took place in his capacity as a senator, not a campaign surrogate.
Sessions, in a statement a spokeswoman tweeted late Wednesday, said: “I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false.”
The White House also is pushing back, arguing that the meetings between Sessions and Russian ambassador took place in his official capacity as a senator, not as a Trump campaign advisor or surrogate.
“This is the latest attack against the Trump administration by partisan Democrats,” the White House said in a statement to CNN. “General Sessions met with the ambassador in an official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is entirely consistent with his testimony.”
“It’s no surprise that Senator Al Franken is pushing this story immediately following President Trumps successful address to the nation.”
