Attorney General Jeff Sessions said today that he will recuse himself from any investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. In fact, Sessions went further than that. He will recuse himself from any investigation related to the 2016 presidential campaign.
This was the right thing for Sessions to do. The investigation already underway will likely encompass Sessions’ two “meetings,” such as they were, with the Russian ambassador. Under these circumstances, I don’t think Sessions reasonably could have presided over, or had any involvement with, the investigation.
Democrats will press Sessions to resign as Attorney General. They will claim that he lied about his contact with the Russian ambassador.
That claim is rubbish. Andy McCarthy takes it on, in the context of a potential perjury allegation, here. Rich Lowry discusses it here.
Fred Bauer shows that it’s far from unusual for U.S. Senators to have contact with Russia’s ambassador. We’ve already seen that Sen. Claire McCaskill has had such contact, though she initially claimed otherwise. Bauer cites a boatload of additional Senators, including more than 30 Democrats, who meet with Russia diplomats.
But because DOJ investigators may probe at least one of Sessions’ contacts with the Russian ambassador, he needed to recuse himself, and has done so.
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