US Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak to discuss Trump campaign matters during the 2016 presidential election, according to US intelligence intercepts, The Washington Post reports.
According to the Post, Kislyak told his superiors in Moscow about two conversations he had with Sessions, which included a discussion on policy issues important to the Kremlin. Sessions was a foreign policy adviser to Trump and major campaign supporter at the time, CNN reported.
Sessions originally never disclosed any interactions he had with Kislyak, but a meeting first came to light in March when the Post reported that he met with Kislyak at an event during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Sessions met with Kislyak for a second time during the presidential campaign, this time in his senate office in Washington. This meeting, in September, also wasn’t publicly known until the Post reported about it in March.
Sessions did not disclose either meeting when he applied for his security clearance. He also did not mention it when he was asked about contact with Russians during his senate confirmation hearings earlier this year. Sessions denied any campaign-related meetings with Russians at the confirmation hearings, saying, “I did not have communications with the Russians.”
The revelations that he had met with Kislyak led to calls for Sessions to recuse himself from overseeing the FBI investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Sessions ultimately agreed to step aside from the investigation.
President Donald Trump tweeted about the Post’s latest story Saturday morning, saying the leaks of intelligence information, “like Comey’s,” must stop.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement to CNN that she could not comment on the Post’s report on Friday.
Add new comment
Read our comment policy before posting your viewpoints