SESSIONS FIGHTS BACK
AG calls claim he worked with Russia to undermine our democracy “an appalling and detestable lie.”
FrontPage Mag
by Matthew Vadum
6/13/2017
Excerpt:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions took aim at unhinged Russian electoral collusion conspiracy theorists, pushing back against left-wingers’ wild claims that by doing his job he somehow betrayed America.
The comments by the former Republican senator from Alabama came during heated testimony yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sessions denied, as he has done before, that he had any inappropriate contact with Russian officials or that he plotted with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government to influence the 2016 election.
Sessions’ testimony came the day after Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy, a longtime friend of the president, claimed Trump was considering firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading the investigation into the Russian conspiracy theory. A few hours before Sessions testified, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein was asked by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) if he would fire Mueller. Critics have accused Mueller of a litany of conflicts of interest that they claim ought to disqualify him as an investigator.
“Senator, I’m not going to follow any order unless I believe those are lawful and appropriate orders,” Rosenstein said during a hearing about President Trump’s $27.7 billion fiscal 2018 budget for the Department of Justice. Mueller “may be fired only for good cause, and I am required to put that cause in writing. That’s what I would do. If there were good cause, I would consider it.”
The attorney general’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee was marked by several testy exchanges with Democrats. The senior Democrat and vice chairman of the committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, set the noticeably prosecutorial tone for his side by interrupting Sessions repeatedly. “The Russians massively interfered,” in the 2016 election, Warner claimed.
In his opening statement, Sessions said:
Let me state this clearly, colleagues. I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign. I was your colleague in this body for 20 years, at least some of you. And the suggestion that I participated in any collusion that I was aware of, any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process is an appalling and detestable lie.
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