US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions, under a relentless attack from Democrats over his contacts with the Russian Ambassador in Washington, has recused himself from any investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential election.
But the Democrats are not content with his recusal and are demanding that he must step down — a campaign that President Donald Trump has promptly dismissed as a “witch hunt”, offering his “total support” to his chief law enforcement officer.
“I have decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the US,” Sessions said on Thursday following the demands from top Democratic lawmakers for his resignation and appointment of a Special Prosecutor for a thorough investigation of the alleged Russian interference.
Stating that his two conversations with the Russian envoy were in his capacity as US Senator and had nothing to do with the Trump campaign, Sessions said his recusal announcement “should not be interpreted as confirmation of the existence of any investigation or suggestive of the scope of any such investigation”.
Not long after his hastily-arranged news conference to announce the recusal, some of the top Democratic lawmakers let it be known that nothing short of his resignation would do.
“Attorney-General Sessions’ narrow recusal and his sorry attempt to explain away his perjury are totally inadequate,” House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi said. Her fellow Democrat from California and Indian-American Senator Kamala Harris tweeted: “Sessions lied under oath before Congress. Recusal isn’t enough. He must resign.”
Trump, however, came to the rescue of his embattled Attorney General. “Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional,” Trump said in respect of Sessions’ comments during his Senate confirmation hearing when asked about his contacts with any Russian officials.
Accusing the Democrats of attempting face-saving tactics after losing the presidential race that were supposed to win, Trump said in his statement: “The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election, and now they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!”
Even as Trump put out his statement, The New York Times reported that Trump’s own son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner had also met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at Trump Tower in December, along with former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.
While confirming the meeting, White House Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks explained in away, saying: “They generally discussed the relationship and it made sense to establish a line of communication…Jared has had meetings with many other foreign countries and representatives — as many as two dozen other foreign countries’ leaders and representatives.”