Sessions questioned in Russia inquest
AG is first Cabinet member to testify
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who played a key role in several controversies shadowing President Donald Trump, was questioned for several hours last week by the special counsel’s office investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Sessions is the first known member of Trump’s Cabinet to be interviewed in the criminal inquiry, which is seeking to determine whether Trump or any of his aides assisted the Russian campaign interference effort or were involved in alleged obstruction of justice during the subsequent FBI investigation.
The attorney general could provide an eyewitness account to special counsel Robert Mueller about several key episodes under scrutiny, including Trump’s interactions with campaign foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos, who offered to arrange meetings with senior Kremlin officials, and Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.
“Sessions is kind of everywhere,” said Susan Hennessy, a national security and governance fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution. “If you are conducting a thorough investigation, who are the people you absolutely need to talk to? Trump is one of those people. Sessions is another.”
The sit-down with Sessions is the latest evidence that Mueller’s highstakes investigation is reaching an advanced stage, although its final outcome is unclear.
Mueller already has arranged to question Steve Bannon, who was Trump’s campaign manager and later chief strategist at the White House until he was fired in August. Mueller also is expected to seek an interview with Trump in coming weeks.
Papadopolous and former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and are cooperating with prosecutors. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his deputy have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.
A Justice Department spokesman confirmed that Sessions met with Mueller’s team last week but declined to say what was discussed. The special counsel’s office declined to comment.
Trump downplayed news of the interview, which was first published by The New York Times, while talking with reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office.
The development emerged the day after Sessions said the Justice Department was investigating why five months of text messages between Peter Strzok, a senior FBI agent, and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, had disappeared.
The pair, who reportedly were in a romantic relationship, initially worked on the special counsel team. But Strzok was reassigned last summer after an Inspector General’s investigation discovered other texts between them included some critical of Trump, as well as of Democrats. Page had already left the team.
Sessions said Monday that investigators will “use every technology available” to recover the missing phone texts. The FBI blamed a technical problem but Republicans suggested the possibility of a cover-up.
“One of the biggest stories in a long time,” Trump tweeted.
Top Democrats on Tuesday called on Facebook and Twitter to investigate what lawmakers said are Russian efforts to promote the release of a classified Republican memo criticizing the FBI probe of Russia's meddling in the 2016 campaign.
“If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process,” said a letter to Facebook and Twitter from Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats from California who are the top members of their party on the House Intelligence Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, respectively.
Sessions was an early and impassioned Trump supporter and surrogate during the presidential campaign. He was the first U.S. senator to support the New York business mogul and vouched for his credentials as a conservative hard-liner on immigration, which was a core part of Trump’s message.
After his upset win, Trump nominated Sessions as attorney general, making him the country’s top law enforcement official. But Trump criticized Sessions after he abruptly recused himself in March from supervising the Russia investigation, without first telling the president.