WASHINGTON — Questions about the Trump campaign's Russia contacts threaten to envelop the administration as congressional Republicans broke ranks Thursday to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from a Justice Department investigation into those contacts.
With the Sessions controversy, the Trump administration's top law enforcement official finds himself under the same cloud that forced the resignation of Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the administration. Top Democrats called on Sessions to resign, while a growing number of Republicans said it was time for a special prosecutor lead the probe in Sessions' place.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz on Thursday tweeted, "AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself."
Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said, "Jeff Sessions is a former colleague and a friend, but I think it would be best for him and the country to recuse himself from the Russia probe."
At a CNN Town Hall event Wednesday night, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said, "It is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump. So there may be nothing there, but if there's something there, if the FBI believes it is criminal in nature, then, for sure, you need a special prosecutor."
Graham subsequently called on Sessions to explain himself, calling Sessions, "an incredibly honest man." He and other GOP lawmakers urged caution.
"There is no smoking gun at this point," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. "Should we do thorough investigations, yes we should. I'm just appealed at the rapid rush to judgment on something when we have almost no facts out there."
The statements came after it emerged that Sessions met twice with the Russian ambassador while he was a national security adviser to the Trump campaign, despite saying in his Jan. 10 confirmation hearing testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, "I did not have communications with the Russians."
News of Sessions' contacts with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, came as the New York Times reported Obama administration officials sought to document intelligence about the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia as Moscow meddled in U.S. elections.
On Wednesday evening, in the wake of such reports, Sessions drew the distinction that the contact in question occurred in his role as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and not as a campaign surrogate. He said he "never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false."
Asked by NBC News Thursday morning if he would recuse himself in investigating any potential ties between Trump's campaign and Russian officials, Sessions said he would do so "whenever it's appropriate."
Top Democrats in the House and Senate by Thursday morning had called on Sessions to resign. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., joined his House counterpart Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who said Sessions should step down.
"Last night when I read the revelations ... and his decision to mislead Congress without those contacts, I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach," Schumer told reporters Thursday. "The information reported last night makes it clear, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Attorney General Sessions cannot possibly lead an investigation ... with these revelations, he may very well become the subject of it."
"Jeff Sessions lied under oath during his confirmation hearing before the Senate," Pelosi said in a statement released late Wednesday. "Under penalty of perjury, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, 'I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.' We now know that statement is false."
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who served with Sessions on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sessions "definitely needs to recuse himself." The Senate Judiciary Committee should call Sessions back and "grill him about why he misled the committee," he said.
"The chief national security adviser has had to resign over lying about his contacts with the Russians and now the chief law enforcement official of the United States has misled his colleagues about the contact with Russians—is very serious," Kaine said. "Depending on how that [testimony] goes, resignation may be the appropriate thing."
Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.
