Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify publicly on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee amid increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill regarding his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 U.S. election.
Sessions recused himself from the ongoing Russia probe on March 2, after the Washington Post reported that he had failed to disclose two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during his confirmation hearing in January.
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During a closed-door meeting following his public testimony last week, former FBI Director James Comey told senators that the FBI was looking into the possibility that Sessions had a third, previously undisclosed discussion with a senior Russian official at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on April 27, 2016.
Comey testified that he was certain Sessions — an outspoken supporter of the Trump campaign — would ultimately recuse himself from the Russian investigation, and so didn’t tell him that the president asked that the probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn be dropped.
“Our judgement, as I recall, was that [Sessions] was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons,” Comey testified. “We also were aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.”
The hearing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday.
