U.S. President Donald Trump accused Democrats late on Thursday of conducting a “witch-hunt” against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over contacts with Russia, as the veteran senator recused himself from any probe into the election campaign.
Mr. Sessions’ announcement came as top Democrats demanded his resignation after it emerged he had met with Russia’s Ambassador during the presidential election campaign, as the White House moved to forestall a snowballing controversy over its ties to Moscow.
Mr. Sessions denied any impropriety or that he lied about those encounters in his Senate confirmation hearing. The Attorney General told his confirmation hearing in January that he “did not have communications with the Russians” and did not know of any by other campaign staff.
Mr. Sessions on Thursday clarified that his denial referred to contacts made on behalf of the campaign. He said he met Mr. Kislyak in his capacity as a Senator, and discussed mainly global politics with him.
Mr. Trump declared his “total” confidence in Mr. Sessions — while adding that he “wasn’t aware” of contacts between Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Mr. Sessions, who was a Senator actively supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign at the time. He defended Mr. Sessions again in a statement late on Thursday, calling him an “honest man” and accusing Democrats of carrying out “a total witch hunt!”
Mr. Sessions “did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional”.
Unswayed by Mr. Sessions’s account of events, top Democrats are maintaining their calls for him to step down immediately, accusing him of perjury.
Independent probe
They also called for an independent prosecutor to investigate contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, which U.S. intelligence says interfered in the election to hurt Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Adam Schiff, a Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, rejected Mr. Sessions’s claim that his contacts with Mr. Kislyak were unrelated to his work with the Trump campaign as “simply not credible”.
“In the midst of a Russian campaign aimed at undermining our election and as a highly visible proxy for candidate Trump, Sessions would have had to be extraordinarily naive or gullible to believe that the ambassador was seeking him out in his office for a discussion on military matters, and Sessions is neither,” he said in a statement.
“I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the Attorney General should step down,” he said, echoing calls made earlier by top Democrats in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress.
Mr. Trump has come under increasing pressure over Russia’s interference in the election. According to officials, U.S. intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continue to investigate just how and how much Moscow intruded into U.S. politics, and whether that effort involved collusion between the Trump campaign and officials in the Kremlin.
