[W]ASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., submitted detailed written questions in January to Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general.
Leahy demanded clear responses from Sessions on a number of topics, from the role of the Justice Department in enforcing voting rights to the then-Alabama senator’s ties to hate groups. And while Sessions often obfuscated in his responses, he offered an unambiguous answer to question 22e.
“Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?” Leahy asked Sessions.
“No,” the nominee curtly responded. It was his only one-word answer on the entire questionnaire.
But Sessions did, in fact, meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice last year, according to a Wednesday night report from The Washington Post.
The exact nature of the discussions with the Russian diplomat is unclear. A Sessions spokesperson said the conversations had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign and were related to Sessions’ role as a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. All 26 members of the Armed Services Committee were asked by the Post if they had been in contact with the Russian ambassador last year, and all, save Sessions, said no.
The revelations provoked varying levels of concern in Congress on Thursday.
Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, has ignored calls for an investigation of Trump. But on Thursday he tweeted that “Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself.”
In a press conference Thursday, Sessions announced that he would recuse himself from investigations “related in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States.”
Sessions, who was a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail, said senior Justice Department officials had recommended that he step away from campaign investigations.
In the press conference, Sessions rejected any insinuation that his conversations with the Russian ambassador included talk of campaign meddling. “Let me be clear: I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said.
Asked later if he talked about politics with Ambassador Kislyak, Sessions said he could not rule it out.
“Most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy,” Sessions said.
For weeks, Leahy and other top Democrats have called on Sessions to recuse himself from any Trump-related investigations.
But until his announcement Thursday, Sessions had ignored those calls. In response to Leahy’s questions in January, Sessions made no commitment to remove himself from Trump-related investigations. “I am not aware of a basis to recuse myself from such matters,” he wrote.
Department of Justice guidelines prohibit prosecutors from involving themselves in a case if they have “a personal or political relationship” with the subject of an inquiry.
The attorney general directly oversees a number of federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They hold the ultimate power of deciding whether to continue investigations following recommendations by the law enforcement agency. Now that Sessions has recused himself from Russian investigation, any decision to pursue charges will be made by another Justice Department official.
Leahy said Sessions’ recusal “does not go far enough.” The Vermont senator called for the appointment of an independent special counsel to investigate allegations of collusion between Moscow and various Trump associates, and asserted that the White House is “intent on suppressing any public disclosure of Russia’s interference.”
Top level politicians in Vermont, including the state’s Republican governor, are calling for Sessions to resign from the Justice Department.
At a press conference in Montpelier, Republican Gov. Phil Scott said that if Sessions lied to Congress, he should resign.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. were among many in Congress calling on Sessions to resign.
“Millions of Americans are deeply concerned about the possibility that the Trump administration colluded with President Putin and the Russian authoritarian government to win the presidential election,” Sanders said in a statement early Thursday. “It is deeply disturbing that then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, under oath at a Senate confirmation hearing, falsely denied having met with the Russian ambassador.”
“Attorney General Sessions, while under oath, at best misled the Senate Judiciary Committee about his contacts with Russian officials,” Welch said. “At worst, he committed perjury.”
On Thursday morning, all the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee submitted a letter to the FBI requesting a criminal investigation into whether Sessions lied to congress while under oath.
Sections 1621 and 1001 of the U.S. Code set out definitions and penalties for lying to Congress. Section 1621 defines perjury as anyone who “willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true.” The statute ascribes monetary penalties for those found guilty, as well as up to five years in prison.
While politically charged threats of perjury investigations are commonplace in Congress, formal investigations are highly unlikely.
According to a 2007 study in the Quinnipiac Law Review, only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress since the 1940s. Two of the six people successfully tried for perjury were members of President Richard Nixon’s Cabinet, who had lied before a Senate committee in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Recent calls for perjury investigations of individuals who have testified before Congress have not resulted in formal charges.
In 2014, a bipartisan group of lawmakers said James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, lied under oath to a Senate committee when asked about the scope of surveillance of American citizens.
More recently, House Republicans called on the FBI to investigate whether Hillary Clinton had lied under oath during her testimony regarding the terror attacks in Benghazi.
The FBI, which is tasked with initiating such investigations, did not respond to the requests.
Democrats are urging FBI Director James Comey to investigate Sessions, but the federal agency is already conducting three separate investigations into Russian meddling in the election. Any potential investigation into Sessions’ contacts with Russia would likely fall under the umbrella of one of those ongoing probes.
It’s unclear how congressional investigations of Russian campaign meddling will move forward. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have initiated investigations, but Leahy and others say a more comprehensive approach is needed, suggesting the establishment of a special committee like the one formed after the terror attacks on September 11.
The Senate Judiciary Committee would be the most likely body to investigate potential perjury charges against Sessions, as it is tasked with oversight of the Department of Justice.
The Judiciary Committee also holds subpoena power, and Leahy demanded Thursday that Sessions appear again before Judiciary members to explain why he gave “misleading testimony under oath and why he failed to disclose such false testimony until prompted by news reports.”
“Such conduct is unacceptable from our nation’s top law enforcement official,” he said.
