All Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are now calling for a criminal investigation into Sessions
THE HILL – Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday asked the FBI director to open a criminal investigation into whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath when he denied having any contact with Russian officials.
In a letter, the lawmakers called on FBI Director James Comey and Channing D. Phillips, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., to probe whether Sessions lied to Congress under oath and broke the law.
FRANKEN: CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week, that included information that “Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.” These documents also allegedly say “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” Again, I’m telling you this as it’s coming out, so, you know.
But if it’s true, it’s obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?
SESSIONS: Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.
FRANKEN: Very well.
The entire context of the question was about a CNN story about Russia having the goods on Trump, alleging communications between the Trump campaign and Russia. Sessions responded that he was considered a surrogate and that he didn’t have communication with the Russians.
This is not hard. It’s clear he was talking about as a campaign surrogate and not a sitting Senator.