Attorney General Jeff Sessions met Russia’s ambassador during the election despite telling his confirmation he had “no communications with the Russians”.
The justice department confirmed he met Sergei Kislyak in July and September last year as part of his role on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mr Sessions said on Thursday he did not meet “with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign”. Claims of Russian interference in the election have dogged President Trump. The US intelligence community believes the alleged Russian hacking of Democratic organisations was carried out to help Mr Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Mr Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired last month after he misled the White House about his conversations with Mr Kislyak, allegedly regarding sanctions against Moscow. The Democrats have reacted with anger at the latest revelations, saying Mr Sessions should resign and at the very least step aside from an FBI probe he is overseeing into the hacking claims.
The Washington Post reported that Mr Sessions and Mr Kislyak held a private conversation in Mr Sessions’s office in September and had spoken earlier in the summer at a meeting with several other ambassadors. Mr Sessions had meetings with more than 25 foreign ambassadors in the course of the year. But his meetings with Mr Kislyak came while he was a prominent part of Mr Trump’s campaign team – a socalled surrogate – and amid growing reports of Russian meddling in the US election.
