Jeff Sessions had two meetings with Russian ambassador in 2016

According to a news report, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was in contact with the Russian ambassador and had two meetings with him in 2016. He was still a senator at that time. According to The Washington Post the meetings in question are under investigation by US investigators and Sessions didn’t know that he was being investigated.

At the time of the meetings, Session was a policy adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump. The first meeting between Sessions and Ambassador Sorgey Kisylak took place in the ambassador’s office in July. The second meeting occurred in September and was attended by other ambassadors as it took place right after a Heritage Foundation speech.

During his confirmation as Attorney General in January, Sessions was asked what he would do if anyone with connections to Trump’s campaign was found to be in contact with the Russians. Sessions replied that he had not been in communication with the Russians.

These revelations are casting more doubts on the Trump administration. The White House has now confirmed the meetings but they argue that there was nothing inappropriate in the meeting and that partisan democrats are attacking him for no reason. Session said: “I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false.”

The furor is not likely to die down anytime soon as the Russian scandal is being investigated by the Department of Justice, four Congressional committees as well as various US intelligence agencies. The democrats are not satisfied by Jeff Sessions’s statement and are demanding that he should recuse himself from the investigations. He took over the office of Attorney General and as such is in a position to oversee the investigation into the alleged connection between Trump’s campaign officials and Russians carried out by FBI and the Department of Justice.

(Reporting by Ananya Dutta; Editing by Mohith Agadi)