US attorney general to face questions on Comey firing, Russia

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will face questions about the firing of FBI Director James Comey and any undeclared meetings with Russian officials when he goes before a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, becoming the highest-ranking member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet to testify in the affair.

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Jack Reed questioned on Sunday why Sessions was involved in Trump's May 9 dismissal of Comey after he had recused himself from investigations of whether Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 presidential election with possible help from Trump associates.

"There's a real question of the propriety of the attorney general participating in that in any way, shape or form," Reed, an ex-officio member of the Senate intelligence committee, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Sessions said in a letter on Saturday that he will appear before the committee to address matters that Comey brought up last week in testimony to the same panel.

He did not say whether he would appear in open or closed session. Democrats are pushing for a public hearing. Republican Senator James Lankford, a member of the intelligence panel, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that decision had not been finalized, but, "I assume that this will be public."

Sessions' testimony comes amid a reported riff with Trump. Media reports last week said Sessions offered to resign because of tensions with the president over his decision to recuse himself from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Russia probe.

Comey accused the Republican president of trying to get him to drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and fired him to undermine the Russia probe.

Trump himself attributed his dismissal of Comey to the Russia investigation.

Comey's testimony on Thursday also raised new questions about the attorney general's relationship with Russian officials with ties to President Vladimir Putin. One is whether Sessions had any undisclosed meetings with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak or other Russians during the campaign or after Trump took office.

A day before Comey appeared before the Senate intelligence panel, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, also members of Trump's Cabinet, took the stand.

Sessions in March removed himself from involvement in any probe into alleged Russian election meddling but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose that he met last year with Russia's ambassador.

Reed said Sessions would be asked about any undeclared meetings he might have had with Russians. "That'll come up," he said on Fox.

Source: Khaleej Times