Moscow’s foreign minister is not impressed with the U.S. uproar against the attorney general.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions answers questions during a press conference at the Department of Justice, on Mar. 2, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Sessions addressed the calls for him to recuse himself from Russia investigations after reports surfaced of meetings he had with the Russian ambassador during the U.S. presidential campaign. (WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES)
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Russia's foreign minister said Friday that his country's ambassador in Washington is not a spy, and called criticism of his past meetings with now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions a "witch hunt."
"The ambassadors are appointed in order to maintain relationships," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday in Moscow. "They are maintained by holding meetings, talks and establishing contacts with officials from both executive and legislative branches of power. I can only quote what the media said today -- this all looks like a witch hunt."
President Donald Trump has also called the furor a "witch hunt."
Previously, the foreign ministry specifically rejected reporting by CNN that Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., is a well-known spy.
He is "a well-known, world-class diplomat," said spokesman Maria Zakharova on Thursday.
"He was deputy minister of foreign affairs in Russia, who has communicated with American colleagues for decades in different fields, and CNN accused him of being a Russian spy ... of recruiting? Oh my God!" she told reporters in Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday also called reporting to this effect "fake news" and "bogus media speculations that keep fanning tensions."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended his interactions with Kislyak in 2016 on Thursday, as the administration and Sessions' allies in the Senate saying such interactions would have been standard practice for a senior senator on the armed services committee.
Sessions said a lot of ambassadors in Washington are "gossipy;" Lavrov noted on Friday that Kislyak's job was to "maintain relationships."
"Most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy," Sessions said.
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Thursday that "Sessions met with the ambassador in an official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is entirely consistent" with prior confirmation testimony to the U.S. Senate.
Leading Democrats say these meetings flagrantly contradict his testimony and have demanded he resign.
