An increasing number of officials are questioning whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions is fit to oversee an investigation on Russia's role in the election. Sessions has denied meeting with Russian officials during the course of the presidential election to discuss the Trump campaign. Still, allegations arise.
According to a report by the Washington Post, Sessions spoke twice last year with Russian officials and didn’t tell lawmakers. Sessions allegedly met with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
U.S. investigators are looking into Sessions’ communications as part of a larger investigation regarding possible links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.
Sessions was also asked whether he would step aside from investigating alleged ties between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government. The Attorney General responded by saying that he'd be ready to "recuse himself" if need be.
If you've been a bit out of the loop, here's the latest on Sessions:
- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and NY Sen. Chuck Schumer are calling for Sessions to resign
- They're also calling for a prosecutor to be appointed to investigate Russian relations
- House Speaker Paul Ryan says he supports Sessions' decision to recuse himself if he becomes part of an investigation into Russia
- House Oversight Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz wants Sessions to recuse himself
- The White House is defending Sessions against "partisan" Democrats
Basically, it looks like a lot of people want Sessions to kick the bucket and get the heck out:
In total, 55 lawmakers signed a letter that was sent to Sessions last week asking him to withdraw based on his ties to Trump’s campaign and key figures who have been alleged to have ties to Russia.
Though Sessions claims communication was never breached.
At this time, it seems that fate is almost inevitable for Sessions. Check out this video from CNN below:
It's pretty easy to guesstimate how much trouble a politician is in by how forcefully his (or her) friends, partners, and allies push back in the immediate aftermath of a negative story. And by the looks of it, AG Jeff Sessions has dug himself a deep, deep hole.
So deep of a hole, that he may have dug most of it himself. Clips have also began to surface in the wake of recent investigations, including a 1999 Sessions interview with C-SPAN.
In the video, he states
"And when anybody is is called to court, and asked to tell the truth, they have to tell the truth. And I'm telling you, as a person who spent my career in the court, if we ever get to the point in this country where just because you're a high public official, they think you have a right to not tell the truth when you are called to court, we ...are going to lose equal justice under law."
So, what's going on now? Is Sessions compromising the law? Or is the Washington Post, in the midst of all the current "fake media" creating false allegations? Will Sessions recuse himself, and when will the time come when it's right for him to do so?
Maybe he's waiting for a few more lawmakers to plead him to resign. 65, perhaps?