Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at the National Association of Attorneys General annual winter meeting in Washington. (ALEX BRANDON/AP)
President Donald Trump's administration is immersed in another furor, this time over allegations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath about his contacts with Russia during the campaign. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urged Sessions to resign. Other congressional Democrats are urging Sessions to recuse himself from a Justice Department investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election.
The turmoil comes less than two days after Trump gave a well-received speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. He was praised for taking an elevated and conciliatory tone. Now the Russia issue is drawing him and his key advisers back into Washington's swamp of charge and counter-charge.
Pelosi called on Sessions to resign after it was reported that he failed to disclose contacts he had with the Russian government when questioned during his confirmation hearing for the attorney general's job in January. The Washington Post reported that Sessions, then a senator and a prominent Trump supporter, spoke with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, twice last year.
A spokeswoman for Sessions issued a statement that there was "nothing misleading about his answer" to the Senate committee conducting the confirmation hearing. She said Sessions was a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee last year and was talking with Russian officials in that capacity. She said what he denied to the committee was making contact with the Russians as a Trump surrogate. However, a video of his remarks appeared to show that he made no such distinction--Sessions flatly denied having contact with Russians during the campaign.
On Wednesday night, Sessions issued a statement, according to The Associated Press, that, "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."
Pelosi issued a statement that, "After lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the Attorney General must resign. There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal and financial connections to the Russians."
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member on a key House oversight committee, also urged Sessions to resign.
