Sessions: I'll Step Off Russia Inquiry When 'Appropriate'

AG doesn't seem up for resigning, though, after Russian ambassador chats revealed
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 2, 2017 12:07 PM CST
Sessions: I'll Step Off Russia Inquiry When 'Appropriate'
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he's willing to step away from the Russia probe if need be.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

More Democrats are calling for the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions over a Washington Post report that he didn't reveal during his confirmation hearing he'd met with Russia's ambassador to the US while Election 2016 was in full swing. The latest to climb aboard the resignation bandwagon: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who said at a Thursday presser Sessions should step down "for the good of the country" and that the DOJ's inspector general should look into Sessions' actions to remove "even a scintilla of doubt about the impartiality and fairness of the attorney general" in the investigation into Russia's influence on the presidential election, per the Hill. It wasn't Sessions' meetings with Sergey Kislyak that necessarily posed a problem, Schumer said, but the fact that he didn't disclose them during his confirmation hearing.

Republicans aren't calling for Sessions' resignation just yet, but per the AP, some are now agreeing with what Schumer and other Democrats have been saying for weeks: that Sessions should recuse himself from the DOJ investigation and let an independent special prosecutor handle it. "You want to make sure everybody trusts the investigation," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Thursday's Morning Joe, per the Hill, noting Sessions' recusal would make everything "easier." Sessions told NBC Thursday morning he'd be willing to step away from the probe "whenever it's appropriate" and that accusations that he talked about anything campaign-related with the Russians are "unbelievable" and "false." (More Jeff Sessions stories.)

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