Attorney General Jeff Sessions will face questions about the firing of FBI Director James…
By Doina Chiacu and Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) – Attorney General Jeff Sessions will face questions about the firing of FBI Director James Comey and undeclared meetings with Russian officials at a U. S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, becoming the highest-ranking member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to testify in the affair.
Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Jack Reed on Sunday questioned why Sessions was involved in Trump’s May 9 dismissal of Comey after he had recused himself from investigations of whether Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 presidential election with possible help from Trump associates.
“There’s a real question of the propriety of the attorney general participating in that in any way, shape or form, ” Reed said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Sessions said in a letter on Saturday that he will appear before the committee to address matters that Comey brought up last week in testimony to the same panel.
He did not say whether he would appear in open or closed session. Democrats are pushing for a public hearing. Senator Ron Wyden, an intelligence committee member, asked the panel’s leaders in a letter on Sunday to hold an open hearing.
Republican Senator James Lankford, a member of the intelligence panel, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” the decision was not finalized, but, “I assume that this will be public.”
Sessions’ testimony comes amid a reported riff with Trump. Media reports last week said Sessions offered to resign because of tensions with the president over his decision to recuse himself from the FBI’s Russia probe.
Comey accused the Republican president of trying to get him to drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and fired him to undermine the Russia probe.
Trump himself attributed his dismissal of Comey to the Russia investigation.
Comey’s testimony on Thursday also raised new questions about the attorney general’s relationship with Russian officials with ties to President Vladimir Putin. One is whether Sessions had any undisclosed meetings with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak or other Russians during the campaign or after Trump took office.
A day before Comey appeared before the Senate intelligence panel, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, also members of Trump’s Cabinet, took the stand.
Sessions in March removed himself from involvement in any probe into alleged Russian election meddling but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose that he met last year with Russia’s ambassador.
Reed, who attends intelligence hearings because he is top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said Sessions would be asked about any undeclared meetings he might have had with Russians. “That’ll come up, ” he said on Fox.
TRUMP UNDER OATH?
Comey’s dramatic testimony drew invective from his former boss on Twitter, with Trump dismissing him as a leaker on Friday and a coward on Sunday.
“I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible. Totally illegal? Very ‘cowardly!'” Trump tweeted on Sunday.
The president denied trying to interfere with the investigation and said he would be willing to testify under oath about his interactions with Comey.
“We have to keep in mind that this is one person’s record of what happened. The only two people who know what happened in those meetings are the president and James Comey, ” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox.
Schumer invited Trump to testify under oath before the Senate. “We have the former director of the FBI under oath saying one thing, President Trump saying another, ” he said on CBS.
He also urged Trump to produce any tapes of his conversations with Comey. “If there aren´t tapes, he should let that be known. No more game playing, ” Schumer said.
Trump alluded to tapes in a May tweet. Comey welcomed any tapes during his hearing, and congressional investigators have asked the White House to produce them if they exist.
Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said on ABC’s “This Week, ” “The president said he is going to address the issue of the tapes, whether the tapes exist or not, next week.”
The president’s irrepressible tendency to bring up the Russia investigation, whether by insulting Comey or suggesting the existence of tapes, has created a headache for members of his party who want to put Republican priorities, including healthcare and tax reform, front and center.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that Trump was getting in the way of his own agenda.
“You may be the first president in history to go down because you can´t stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that if you just were quiet, would clear you, ” Graham said on CBS.
“You are your own worst enemy, Mr. President. Knock it off.” (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Doina Chiacu, Timothy Gardner, Mark Hosenball; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
