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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / BREAKING: Jeff Sessions Lied About His Russian Contacts, Too

BREAKING: Jeff Sessions Lied About His Russian Contacts, Too

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When someone tells you who they are, believe them — and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is a true believer in the myth of the “Glorious South” much more than he is a citizen of these modern United States. His revered ancestors had no problem attempting to sell out their country to foreign powers; why would we assume a loyal secessionist like Sessions would balk?

Per the Washington Post:

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.

When Sessions spoke with Kislyak in July and September, the senator was a senior member of the influential Armed Services Committee as well as one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisers. Sessions played a prominent role supporting Trump on the stump after formally joining the campaign in February 2016.

At his Jan. 10 Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” he responded. He added: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”…

When asked to comment on Sessions’s contacts with Kislyak, Franken said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday: “If it’s true that Attorney General Sessions met with the Russian ambassador in the midst of the campaign, then I am very troubled that his response to my questioning during his confirmation hearing was, at best, misleading.

Franken added: “It is now clearer than ever that the attorney general cannot, in good faith, oversee an investigation at the Department of Justice and the FBI of the Trump-Russia connection, and he must recuse himself immediately.”…

CNN adds:

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday if the FBI determines that President Donald Trump’s campaign illegally coordinated with Russia, Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from making the decision whether to pursue prosecutions…

But Graham deflected a question about a new Washington Post report that Sessions twice spoke with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign, saying he needs to know more.

“If there were contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, they may be legitimate; they may be OK. I want to know what happened between the Trump campaign, the Clinton campaign and the Russians,” Graham told CNN’s Dana Bash at a town hall in Washington with Sen. John McCain…

Very simple, Sen. McCain: the Russians used the Trump campaign to kneecap the Clinton campaign, with the assistance of James Comey’s FBI, while the Republican Party turned a (very public) blind eye. Now we just need proof.

You guys managed to gin up, what? seventeen separate Benghazi investigations? I strongly suspect it would take a lot less effort to prove what Trump’s handlers and the Russians were up to, since the Russians no longer care about hiding their success and the Trumplodytes couldn’t hide a cookie jar from your average toddler.

ETA — Shamelessly stolen from Adam, in the post below:

Reader Interactions

214Comments

  3. 3.

    Davis X. Machina

    …the Russians used the Trump campaign to kneecap the Clinton campaign, with the assistance of James Comey’s FBI, while the Republican Party turned a (very public) blind eye. Now we just need proof.

    You have to understand — The. Bitch. Was. About. To. Win.

    This excuses every crime, justifies every act. Existential threats are like that. Salus populi suprema lex, and all that. Fate of the nation stuff.

  4. 4.

    PsiFighter37

    Fuck Lindsay and Grandpa Walnuts. Seriously, those shitheads talk a big game and NEVER.DO.ANYTHING.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    @Davis X. Machina: yeah, um McCain? It’s not fucking complicated. If this had been Chinese intelligence doing this to the Republican candidate this country would have burnt to the ground three months ago

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Michael Weiss‏Verified account
    @ michaeldweiss
    Evan Perez just said it on CNN, so I suppose I can here: Kislyak wasn’t just ambassador, he was Russia’s “top spy recruiter” in D.C.: SVR.

    Sessions was a member of the Armed Services Cmtee. Presumably this might have come up at some point ?

  12. 12.

    RM

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He also wrote a pretty funny book called Why Not Me? about a fictional Franken presidential campaign back in 1999. Lieberman was his running mate. They were the all Jewish ticket.

  13. 13.

    Adam L Silverman

    Gonna just repost this here:
    And here’s the smoking gun:

    And from WaPo:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-spoke-twice-with-russian-ambassador-during-trumps-presidential-campaign-justice-officials-say/2017/03/01/77205eda-feac-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.ba64ec3adff0

    Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

    One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

    The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.

    When Sessions spoke with Kislyak in July and September, the senator was a senior member of the influential Armed Services Committee as well as one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisers. Sessions played a prominent role supporting Trump on the stump after formally joining the campaign in February 2016.

    And the larger problem as laid out by the NY Times – other countries’ Intel Communities have actionable intelligence on the connections between the President’s campaign and the Russians.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/obama-trump-russia-election-hacking.html?_r=0

    American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    Reposting from downstairs:
    This Sessions and Russia stuff. I said last night that the Intelligence Community would let some juicy tidbit drop today or tomorrow. And there it is! Our IC is coming for them. The IC can’t do their jobs properly because of Trump and this administration. They can’t keep us safe. These leaks are them working to keep us safe. Get rid of the Russian agents and other traitors.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    General Sherman should be court-martialed post mortem for failure to hunt down and eliminated Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s ancestors. Never mind they were in Alabama, not Georgia.

    Totally OT, but strangely related:

    My current reading project is Laurent Binet’s HHhH, which is about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. HHhH means “Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich”, or Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich. This passage jumped out at me:

    It’s during the Sudeten crisis that we have the first positive indication of the Führer’s madness. At this time, the merest mention of Beneš and the Czechs would send him into such a rage that he could lose all self-control. He was reportedly seen throwing himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet. Among people still hostile to Nazism, these demented fits quickly earned him the nickname Teppichfresser (“Carpet Eater”). I don’t know if he kept up this habbit of crazed munching, or if the symptom disappeared after Munich.

    Imagine, if you will, what we might have seen if Hitler had access to Twitter. The parallels…they’re remarkable!

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think I heard on NPR today that the Senate (or the Intelligence Committee?) voted to keep the hearings with the Intel Cmtee, which requires closed sessions and edited reports. I wonder if that will hold up. Not holding my breath for anything, at least not yet.

  19. 19.

    Calouste

    It’s pretty easy Senator Graham, if the contacts between Sessions and the Russians were legitimate, why did he feel the need to lie about them?

  21. 21.

    PsiFighter37

    If anything the biggest thing here is that Sessions is caught in a very easily provable lie here.

    Seriously, forget about recusing himself – he should be fucking stepping down for perjuring himself during his confirmation hearing.

  25. 25.

    Yarrow

    @Jeffro: Yep. Me too. I know they know what Trump and his associates did. The IC will not let us down. “He will die in jail.”

  26. 26.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: Smoking gun for sure. He needs to resign. Better yet, let’s impeach him. Let’s get everything on the table.

    Hear that, GOP leadership? No one is safe. Your best move is to toss Trump and his cronies under the bus? What’s that? You can’t because you’re guilty too? Awww… Too bad, so sad.

  27. 27.

    geg6

    Nancy SMASH is calling for him to resign. Franken is saying he should at least recuse himself.

    This is all feeling so Watergate.

    ETA: damn autocorrect! Sorry Senator!

  28. 28.

    MJS

    I guess this is nitpicking but, no, Sen. Franken, his answers weren’t misleading. They were lies. Can the Democrats please start using that word, routinely? Franken is great, but enough of the f’ing collegiality. Enough being the adults. Enough worrying about being labeled partisan or shrill or whatever our “balanced” press wants to call you. Lies are lies, and they need to be pointed out every single time.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Depends. If no one knew he had anything other than a random contact, like the reported discussion at a conference at Heritage, which happened as a result of AG Sessions speaking at the conference, then it is unlikely he would have gotten a full CI and OPSEC briefing. However, if there was a scheduled meeting on his calendar as a Senator, campaign surrogate or not, he should have received such a briefing. That would have been the time to reveal that information. Whether he received such a briefing is an important question to be answered.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    @Yarrow: can’t wait… and I hope it drags down every single one of trumps enablers in Congress who look the other way… there’s no way that at least some of them weren’t compromised by the Russians as well

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jeffro: As far as I am concerned, anyone in Congress with a -R behind their name is an accessory after the fact.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: I seriously, not my usual smartassedly, wonder if this is the origin of carpet muncher:

    He was reportedly seen throwing himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet.

  40. 40.

    efgoldman

    @geg6:

    This is all feeling so Watergate.

    Except Tricksie Dicksie Nixie served a full term, and the Watergate crap was directly involved with his re-election.
    Other stuff (the break in at Elssberg’s shrink’s office, the enemies list) was brought into it, but it was all about campaign finance, who did what with what money, and who covered it up and lied about it.

  42. 42.

    robert thompson

    It amazing to see this development among the unraveling of 45’s administration. not a single one of his cabinet picks is a patriot. They have some venal reason, greed, racism, apocalyptic drivers or any combination. I suppose its the Republic that has so badly let them down and it must be gotten back to. Radical reactionaries every last one..

  45. 45.

    Yarrow

    @Major Major Major Major: Have confidence. They are doing their jobs. They don’t like being hobbled by Russian agents in the White House, meaning allies can’t share key intelligence, as Adam has explained. They need to clean house over there so they can get back to doing their jobs. So they’ll keep leaking what they know and turning the screws on the Republicans in Congress.

    @geg6: It does feel like Watergate. Just way bigger and more serious. Our entire national security is at stake. Our country is at stake.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: But, and its an important one, the IC can only do so much. They can do the counterintel investigation. They can answer Congressional queries truthfully and accurately. What they can’t do is conduct oversight of the Executive Branch or exercise the power of the purse or bring other pressure to bear on the President and his cabinet officials. Nor can they get people to show up and vote in off year and non-Presidential year elections.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman: Nixon, as we olds all recall, actively participated in the cover up days after the break in. He could have ended the entire thing by coming clean at that point, blaming overzealous subordinates doing things he was unaware of. Instead, we got the smoking gun, and a guaranteed conviction and removal from office by the Senate.

  48. 48.

    Aleta

    Taken off twitter:

    Rep. Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on House Oversight Committee, calls for Sessions’ resignation, citing Flynn case.

    WSJ reports that U.S. investigators scrutinized Sessions’ contacts with Kislyak as part of broader Russia probe.

    Blake Hounshell
    28 CFR Section 45.2 seems pretty clear that Sessions now needs to recuse himself https://la

    Eric Geller‏Verified account @ericgeller 3h3 hours ago
    House Intelligence Committee leaders announce plan for Russia investigation. They, too, will investigate Trump–Russia links.

    Eric Geller‏Verified account @ericgeller 22m22 minutes ago
    Incredible line in WSJ story: “the attorney general wasn’t aware that his communications have been under investigation.”

  53. 53.

    TS

    My brain may one day implode listening to GOPers evade questions

    I want to know what happened between the Trump campaign, the Clinton campaign and the Russians,

    Every question they are asked seems to invoke a Clinton response. The question and the actions had ZERO to do with Hillary – other than helping Trump to defeat her in the election. I doubt she asked the Russians to spy on her campaign.

  54. 54.

    gene108

    The New Yorker has a long read, which goes into Russia’s interest in Trump, Putin’s hatred of the West and the Clintons.

    Trump and Company are lucky chumps.

  56. 56.

    randy khan

    My threshold for what’s unbelievable keeps getting higher and higher. These folks make the Nixon Administration look like the Carter era.

  57. 57.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: Binet has a footnote of sorts:

    Some people say that “eating the carpet” is a German expression similar to “eating one’s hat” in English, and that the foreign reporters at the time were wrong to take the phrase literally. However, I’ve made inquiries and can find no evidence whatsoever that such an expression exists — L.B.

  58. 58.

    efgoldman

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Nixon, as we olds all recall, actively participated in the cover up days after the break in. He could have ended the entire thing by coming clean at that point

    Thus creating what is now a cliche: The cover up is almost always worse than the crime.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: My guess is as this drags out we’re likely to find some were accessories before. Let’s be honest about how you cultivate powerful, successful people. You do it by playing to their ego. By stroking it. During the Obama Administration, even as the strategy of obstruction was working, the Congressional GOP had little to show for its efforts beyond the obstruction. They big plans and ideas couldn’t be moved, because even if they passed, the President would veto them. So providing an empathetic ear for commiseration of both elected officials and their staffs would begin the process. And for someone like AG Sessions and his consigliere Mr. Miller they were even farther in the wilderness. As a senator, AG Sessions was so far off the map compared to his GOP colleagues that he was sort of a walking senatorial punchline. And Miller even more so among the other Senators and their staffs, including the GOP ones. An empathetic ear followed by ego stroking and you’ve got your source and they don’t even know it.

  61. 61.

    Yarrow

    @efgoldman: The GOP leadership have been covering this up for months. They were told before the election. Remember Harry Reid calling for them to tell what they know. They KNEW. They may not have known the full extent, but they sold their souls and the safety of the country to get Trump elected. They must pay. They knew.

  63. 63.

    robert thompson

    @Villago Delenda Est: “General Sherman should be court-martialed post mortem for failure to hunt down and eliminated Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s ancestors. Never mind they were in Alabama, not Georgia.”

    Wasn’t for lack of trying. Sherman was deep into the Carolinas when after much prodding and late resupplying and remounting when General Wilson brought down into Alabama the largest cavalry force before or since. Even beat that animal Forrest in the bargain, but utterly failed to snuff out the line of Sessions and therefore, like the raid in Yemen, it can not be counted as a total success So blame Wilson or the Quartermaster in Tennessee..

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: I have no idea. Maybe Schiff promised to support Nunes’ nutso plan to move everything not nailed down in the DOD and the IC to the Azores so his relatives there can make bank on it. Every one of these guys is up to their arm pits in foreign or domestic or corporate intrigues that if you tried to write this up as a pitch for a novel or a movie no one would believe it.

  66. 66.

    Yarrow

    ^^^

    Sessions lied about contact with Russians.

    Flynn lied about contact w Russians.

    I wonder if Trump is lying about contact w Russians?
    — JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUAL³³º¹ (@th3j35t3r) March 2, 2017

    Such a good question!

  67. 67.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: This. Prediction: Sessions won’t resign, and he won’t recuse himself from anything. The Rs on the House & Senate Intel Committees will do almost nothing, and will slow walk what little they do. 45 will do something to turn the attention his way — a new EO about immigration, or something about healthcare, or a new nomination of some utterly unsuitable person — and in a week or two no one will care about Sessions lying to Congress about his contact with the Russians.

    ETA: I’d be delighted to be wrong.

  68. 68.

    Sab

    @MJS: Franken got called out, unfairly, for lack of collegiality during the Sessions nomination hearings. He fought back, but he has to be careful.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    I don’t feel as I have extraordinarily high ethical standards but if the attorney general lied under oath doesn’t he have to resign?

    Regular people go to jail for obstructing. Every day. We have a much lower standard for the attorney general of the United States than for 19 year old drug addicts? Fabulous. That’s terrific.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Sopan Deb‏Verified account
    @ SopanDeb
    Maybe none of this will matter if Sessions gives a speech tonight and people on TV say “well, he just became Attorney General tonight.”

    this would have made me laugh harder if he had looped in Van Jones, who I’m sure knows he’s a twitter laughing-stock today

  78. 78.

    Smalla

    Found on twitter:
    Delrayser:
    “I did not have international relations with that country.”

  79. 79.

    Peale

    @TS: please. Hillary wanted those Podesta emails released. If there was one thing she learned in 25 years under scrutiny in Washington, its that everyone always gives her the benefit of the doubt.

  80. 80.

    Yarrow

    @Lizzy L: So we have to make them do it. Is everyone going to call their Senators and Reps tomorrow to demand they call for Jeff Sessions to resign? I will be!

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Matthew Yglesias‏Verified account @ mattyglesias 8m8 minutes ago
    What do Republicans think is in Trump’s taxes that is damning enough to be worth covering up, but no so damning they can’t live with it?

  87. 87.

    chopper

    I want to know what happened between the Trump campaign, the Clinton campaign and the Russians,” Graham told CNN’s Dana Bash

    LOL, what a prick.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: And then the next even bigger leak will happen. If this, as the reporting indicates, is from inside the DOJ, then someone there is trying to ensure that the AG can’t muck up the ongoing investigations. And it also means they have access to at least some of the intel being looked at. The pressure can continue to be raised.

  92. 92.

    randy khan

    One more thing: The real Watergate vibe I’m getting here is that, in the end, it turned out that John Mitchell was as bad as the rest of them, and maybe even worse than most.

  94. 94.

    Sab

    @Kay: I know the entire cabinet perjured themselves in their confirmation hearings, but isn’t it a bigger deal if an actual licensed attorney perjures himself? State Bar and all. But it’s possible Alabama has lower standards.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    Sessions should resign, as should any of the other Cabinet picks who lied under oath.

    Assuming he is forced to resign (which isn’t a given, granted), Instant Karma kinda got him, didn’t it? He had to resign from the Senate to become AG. Getting booted out of that so quickly would be a wonderful capstone to his horrible career.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    TS

    @Peale: I just can’t … Sessions lies and Graham wants to investigate the Clinton campaign.

    Like Trump, they don’t understand that they are the government – they don’t have to attack the Clintons anymore – but you are right – after 28 years they just can’t stop.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: Actually Professor Painter (he now teaches at U Minnesota if I’m recalling correctly) is one sharp guy. He’s actually working on these issues with President Obama’s first ethics counsel.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    John HarwoodVerified account @JohnJHarwood
    Trump admin official on Sessions/Russian envoy: “superficial comments about election-related news, not substance of their discussion”

    Dan Eggen‏Verified account
    @DanEggenWPost
    Dan Eggen Retweeted John Harwood
    Hmmm. His spokeswoman told the @washingtonpost he couldn’t remember what was discussed

    as Jon Avarosis pointed out, that took less than an hour

  102. 102.

    Yarrow

    From someone who knows something about this kind of thing:

    Hey Donald, a tip: Cover-ups don't get easier as they proceed. Russia tie leaks drown your joint session speech in less than 24 hrs.— John Dean (@JohnWDean) March 2, 2017

  103. 103.

    PVDMichael

    For those keeping score at home…

    Perjuring yourself about sexy time with someone who is not your wife is worth a guilty impeachment vote from Senator Sessions.

    Perjuring yourself about contact with a foreign adversary accused of meddling in our election… (shrug)

  104. 104.

    Tokyokie

    @PsiFighter37: He took a phone call from the Russian ambassador in his Senate office? WTF? Is he not aware of the high likelihood of such a communication being recorded? Go to a park and use a burner phone, for fuck’s sake. He should be summarily removed from office for gross stupidity.

  106. 106.

    Yarrow

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’d be willing to bet that someone in the IC knows what was said. That’s how these things work. He can try to be “Reaganeque” with his “I don’t recall” crap, but it ain’t gonna fly.

  107. 107.

    scott (the other one)

    @Sab: That is EXACTLY what I was wondering too. Is there any way that he can be disbarred for this?

  109. 109.

    Kay

    “information about people close to Mr. Trump meeting with Russians in the Netherlands, Britain and other countries.”

    So busy, they were! We were busy too. Reading the 5000th story about Hillary Clinton’s server.

    The Trumpsters, on the other hand, were in Holland and who the hell knows where else meeting with God knows who and no one covering Trump noticed?

  110. 110.

    Aleta

    Meanwhile back at the travel ban:

    The White House Is Undermining Its Own Case for the Urgency of a Travel Ban

    Trump’s senior advisers, most especially Stephen Miller, who was heavily involved in the travel-ban fiasco, are now making public noises about economic reasons, and especially downward pressure on wages for American citizens, being an alternate and perhaps competing rationale for building a higher, er, wall against immigrants and refugees. Greg Sargent makes the case:

    It’s possible for the ban to have more than one rationale, and Miller himself says as much. But the point is that this raises additional legitimate questions about whether the national security rationale for the ban is merely a pretext. Such questions have been raised before. As many have pointed out, Trump repeatedly campaigned on an explicit vow to ban Muslim entry into the United States, which raises questions as to whether the executive order was designed to move towards a Muslim ban in a manner designed to get around legal hurdles, meaning it has discriminatory intent and effect. In blocking the ban, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that outside evidence, such as Trump’s public “Muslim ban” comments, can be considered in assessing its intent. Miller has added another possible motive into the mix.

  111. 111.

    Yarrow

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: LOL! I knew they’d drop a juicy tidbit today or tomorrow. I said so last night, but I’m too lazy to go look it up in the comment thread. Donald may have had a good night last night but it’s all changing now. The IC wants the whole Russian administration out of the White House.

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @PVDMichael: To be clear, Bill Clinton did not perjure himself. He did lie under oath but not about a fact that was material to the case. Therefore not perjury.

  113. 113.

    Lyrebird

    @Yarrow:

    them working to keep us safe…

    Let’s call them whistleblowers! May their (figurative) tweets clear away the noise of the twitler!

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Tokyokie: @Yarrow: And this is the issue now. That neither his spokespeople or the White House spokespeople can account for: Ambassador Kisalyk’s communications were monitored. By the US and by his own people (and likely by the Estonians, the Latvians, the Finns, the Bulgarians, the Poles, the Ukranians, the Brits, and the Germans). At the very least both the US and the Russians have a full transcript of that call. This is the same thing that happened with LTG Flynn – he got caught in the routine collection we do of the Russian Ambassador. Notice that the transcripts regarding those conversations never leaked, just the confirmation of them. Same thing here. Anything that AG Sessions says puts him in potential contradiction with what’s on the transcripts that the US IC has of his phone conversation with Ambassador Kisalyk. So he can’t really say anything because if he contradicts what’s on the transcript…

  116. 116.

    Kay

    Also, why was the attorney general so confident that none of this would come out that he blatantly lied under oath in a televised hearing?

    That’s pretty confident. I’d like to know why he thought he was bullet-proof.

  118. 118.

    robert thompson

    @Yarrow: The IC is performing the death of a thousand cuts dance gracefully. It’s gotta be a bad place to be when you know that they know but can’t be sure exactly how much they know. Ha, Sessions deserves to go down like a flying cargo plane loaded with used Porta-Sans aflame and a orange shitgibbon at the controls.

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I went to Chris Cillizza’s twitter feed to find his most mockable tweet form last night, and found this interesting nugget

    Chris Cillizza‏Verified account @ TheFix 1h1 hour ago
    WaPo contacted 26 Senators on the Armed Services committees. 19 responded. Only 1 — Sessions — met with Russian ambassador.

    also, this

    Chris Cillizza‏Verified account @ TheFix 1h1 hour ago
    It’s now political suicide for Republicans if they don’t call for a deeper investigations on Russia

    so get on the phone in the morning, everybody

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    remember last night when half the people here thought Trump had just taken NY and CA in 2020?

    that said, a lot of work remains between tonight and getting Senate Republicans to agree to any kind of meaningful inquiry. I think the more skittish and volatile members of the House–that hot coffee– might break first.

    ETA: along those lines

    Christopher Hayes‏Verified account @ chrislhayes 8m8 minutes ago
    A reminder that even the #NeverTrump and Trump skeptical right really really like Sessions and are happy he’s AG.

    He’s still a member of the Beloved Club

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: Because he, like most people, has no real idea how the Intel Community works. It probably never occurred to him that the NSA does standard, constant, routine monitoring of Ambassador Kisylak’s communications and any other signals intel they could collect. Moreover, even if he did know that or it occurred to him, he probably didn’t realize that it wouldn’t just be logged like a police investigation going through phone records or a trap and trace, but that a complete transcript of the call would be generated and then, because a US citizen was on one side of the call, compartmented and marked so it wouldn’t be accessed until/unless there was an intelligence/counterintelligence need to do so.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    Sessions wasn’t planning on recusing even though he knew he met with these people. He has to resign. He has absolutely no standards. Literally the first thing he did in his new job was abandon any pretense of ethical behavior in a current investigation. He’s already completely compromised and it’s been what, one month?

    Another bad Trump hire. They’re actually getting worse the more we get to know their work. They looked terrible at the outset but that was before they started working. Now they’re really bad.

  128. 128.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: Indeed he can’t. But Sessions has been in the Senate long enough to know they will know everything he said. If he doesn’t know that, he’s dumber than we thought.

    @robert thompson:

    The IC is performing the death of a thousand cuts dance gracefully. It’s gotta be a bad place to be when you know that they know but can’t be sure exactly how much they know.

    So many of the Republicans are in the same boat. As the IC picks off the top members of the administration one by one the noose tightens around the GOP in Congress. They’ll be thinking, “Does the IC know about that one phone call I had or one dinner I had with that one Russian guy?” And the answer is yes! Yes, they do know! But for the moment, the Republican Members of Congress are hoping it’s not going to go badly for them. But it is. Oh, it is.

    Their best bet has been for awhile to demand a thorough and open investigation and distance themselves from the entire Trump administration. But they haven’t done it. So they’ll be implicated as well.

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Paul W.: Yep, here you go:
    https://wearethisamericancarnage.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/the-matryoshka/

    Basically it takes everything Adam Khan has collected and published through his twitter feed, Scott Dworkin has pulled together and published, Schindler, the Jester, Louise Mensch, Pwn All the Things, and James Henry 10K plus word deep dive review at American Interest (with introduction by David Cay Johnston) and builds it into network and link analyses.

  131. 131.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Also, why was the attorney general so confident that none of this would come out that he blatantly lied under oath in a televised hearing?

    That’s pretty confident. I’d like to know why he thought he was bullet-proof.

    tell it, Kay.

    TELL IT!!!

  132. 132.

    Yarrow

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    so get on the phone in the morning, everybody

    Yes! This! Can a front pager set a timed post reminding everyone to call their Members of Congress to tell them to call for Sessions to resign and to call for a thorough investigation into Russian ties.

    Adam, what’s the right thing we want them to have? is it a special commission of some sort to investigate?

  133. 133.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: I’ve never thought he was particularly smart. Politically savvy, especially for Alabama? Yep. Clever? Without a doubt. Smart? Not so much.

  134. 134.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    remember last night when half the people here thought Trump had just taken NY and CA in 2020?

    Wow, I am really glad I skipped.

    Remember when Greenwald and his crew at The Intercept kept trying to tell us that all this Russia stuff was just classic neoliberal redbaiting nothingburgers?

  135. 135.

    Tokyokie

    @GregB: Maybe not “Stalingrad.” That battle was crucial in turning the tide against Nazi Germany and involved enormous sacrifice and heroism on the part of the Soviet people. Although it doesn’t trip off the tongue as lightly, I prefer Jefferson “Kiev Pogroms of 1919” Sessions, as it sums up his character much better.

  136. 136.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Villago Delenda Est: I

    magine, if you will, what we might have seen if Hitler had access to Twitter. The parallels…they’re remarkable!

    Hilter was into some serious drug use by that time.

  137. 137.

    randy khan

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Except, as a sitting member of the Armed Services Committee, he really should have had some idea about that stuff. (And he also served on the terrorism, technology and homeland security subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, to boot.)

  138. 138.

    Lizzy L

    Well, I’m certainly willing to do my bit as a concerned citizen. Aux armes, citoyens! Formez les battalions! To the phones! My Senator (DiFi) is the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, so she’s my first call, and my second call goes to Senator Kamala Harris, also my Senator, who’s on it as well. My Representative isn’t on the House Committee, so I won’t be calling there.

  139. 139.

    Adam L Silverman

    @randy khan: Again: politically savvy (especially for Alabama): check. Clever: check. Smart/Intelligent: never got that impression.

  140. 140.

    J R in WV

    @PsiFighter37:

    Sessions should be “…stepping down for perjuring himself during his confirmation hearing.” !?!?!?

    No, no, no. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III should be in FUQIN JAIL for perjuring himself under oath! The man is a lawyer, he understands what an oath is and what perjury is. He did it anyway!

    A traitor born and bred and raised up, and still a traitor today. Just like the treason-in-defense-of-slavery folks that he worships yet today. Somethings are strong in a blood-line, and treason runs in this worm’s family – obviously he can’t help himself. He knew it was wrong, those meetings, even without the election cheating he was up to, and that’s why he answered the way he did – with the big lie!

    He should wake up tomorrow and tomorrow in jail! Unless, perhaps, he has valuable information about other meetings with Russian operatives… then, perhaps, if convictions are obtained with that information, he could be released with time served, still a convicted felon, but free to be out in the sun again, perhaps. No voting in the Senate for him. No managing the Department of Justice! Maybe pruning the shrubbery outside some federal building somewhere, way up north.

  144. 144.

    Calouste

    @Tokyokie: Scary statistic I remember from a book about the battle of Stalingrad: at the height of the battle, the average time to live for newly arrived Soviet recruits was 24 hours. For officers it was 3 days.

  145. 145.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: It’s just such basic knowledge for anyone who has had any interaction with how our intelligence community works. As a Senator it seems he should be generally aware of something like that.

  146. 146.

    Tokyokie

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Personally, I have little regard for the intellectual heft of racists. They may be devious, but if they were capable of reaching deeply reasoned beliefs, they wouldn’t be racists.

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Major Major Major Major: Remember when Greenwald and his crew at The Intercept kept trying to tell us that all this Russia stuff was just classic neoliberal redbaiting nothing burgers?

    Have they stopped ?

  149. 149.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @rikyrah: Uh, for the same reason Flynn behaved the same way?

    Sweet juggling Jesus on a unicycle, just how frickin’ dumb are these people?

  151. 151.

    Mike J

    This whole thing is fucked up, almost as weird as that Animal Spies show I just watched on PBS. Glad I got an 8th before Sessions got to Seattle.

  157. 157.

    GregB

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’m not one to go around judging everyone by their intellect, but yeah, Sessions does come off as a classic bumpkin dim-bulb.

    Also, the Trumpsters are so arrogant and ham handed they are going to keep flapping their gums and digging the ditch deeper as they try to spin themselves out of this shit storm.

    They have gone from Sessions doesn’t remember to Sessions was trying to help in a matter of hours.

    Sessions is next into the metaphorical wood chipper.

  160. 160.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: Based on my observations I don’t think most members of Congress can tie their own shoes. Lets be honest, when people are sent to Congress they’re not being sent the best and the brightest…

  162. 162.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Yarrow: I think it’s arrogance… I suspect they now think they’re all bulletproof and really don’t even have to hide it anymore…

    I think I saw something upthread about info coming from foreign govts too… doesn’t surprise me in the least…

    This would seem to put Sessions in the same hole w/ Flynn… gotta go!

  163. 163.

    jc

    Several prominent Dems need to repeatedly troll Trump about the deeply troubling Russian shadow looming over his administration — troll Trump exactly like Trump trolled Obama about the birth certificate. Trump is a lot more thin-skinned, and he would be seriously wigged by relentless insinuations about whether he’s some kind of un-American … rhymes-with-hater.

  165. 165.

    pk

    @Kay:

    That’s pretty confident. I’d like to know why he thought he was bullet-proof.

    Because he is a stupid man that’s why. Republicans in general are not terribly smart because they’re either from safe districts or buy their way into power. This entire administration is white affirmative action hires. If any of them had to ever face true competition they’d be out on the streets. We all know what would have happened if Obama or any other democrat had even done a fraction of what Trump has done. Gerrymandering, the media and money always protects republicans and that makes them privileged and stupid. They all think they’re bulletproof and to a large extent it’s true. look how hard it is to get something done about the obvious Russian connection. If it was a democratic president he’d have been impeached already.

  166. 166.

    Arclite

    “Here’s the video of Sessions denying **under oath** that he had communications with the Russians.”

    We need to get the Justice Dept. to investigate, stat!

  167. 167.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @GregB:

    I’m not one to go around judging everyone by their intellect…

    You’re a kinder person than I am…

  169. 169.

    rikyrah

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    I think I saw something upthread about info coming from foreign govts too… doesn’t surprise me in the least…

    I think the International IC community has said, ‘all hands on deck’ – they ALL know Putin’s old job at the KGB….yes, they are funneling information to our Spooks.

  174. 174.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: Yes, the WaPo article explicitly stated that the Brits and the Dutch had collected on communications and meetings in Europe of Trump campaign people and Russian intelligence during the campaign.

  175. 175.

    efgoldman

    @J R in WV:

    The man is a lawyer, he understands what an oath is and what perjury is. He did it anyway!

    Whatever circuit it was certainly dodged a bullet when Evil Leprechaun was croaked for a judgeship.

  176. 176.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @pk:

    Gerrymandering, the media and money always protects republicans and that makes them privileged and stupid.

    About 20 years ago, I heard a Russian – Vladimir Posner, I think – talking on the radio about the US and Russian politicians… there were two comments in particular that really stuck w/ me…

    1) He said ‘you Americans’ have been on top for so long it’s made you soft and stupid’… see ‘Sessions, Jeff’ and ‘Flynn, Michael’ for more information…

    2) He also said that there’s no such thing as stupid Russian politician… because all the stupid ones are dead…

    ETA: Observant man, that Vlad…

  177. 177.

    Timurid

    The cover story is that he talked with Kislyak about Armed Services Committee business.

    The Washington Post contacted all 26 members of the 2016 Senate Armed Services Committee to see whether any lawmakers besides Sessions met with Kislyak in 2016. Of the 20 lawmakers who responded, every senator, including Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), said they did not meet with the Russian ambassador last year.

  178. 178.

    Another Scott

    @pk:

    If it was a democratic president he’d have been impeached already.

    Of course. But that’s because, by definition, only a GOP president is legitimate. Don’t you know that?!?!1

    :-/

    I occasionally flip past MSNBC to see what they’re yammering about. No matter the time of day, it’s always Trump, and it has been that way for going on 20 months or more. The other news channels and news reports are the same way.

    DC is wired for Republicans.

    Even when they’re incompetent idiots who can’t do anything at all, we (the political press and people interested in politics) still spend all our time talking about them. It’s understandable, but it’s also horrible and disheartening. It’s hard to come up with productive ways to fight them when they’re always setting the agenda and defining the battlefield.

    Maybe we should pay more attention to things like:

    https://twitter.com/HouseDemocrats
    https://twitter.com/SenateDems

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  179. 179.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @rikyrah:

    they ALL know Putin’s old job at the KGB….

    And they also know his reputation…

    I don’t blame them for being scared, which they appear to be…

    I am amazed that people like Sessions and Flynn wouldn’t realize that OTHER govts might be eavesdropping when anyone talks to Russians…

    It’s like something out of Dr Strangelove…

  180. 180.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Timurid: That itself is problematic. That explanation is not helping. It doesn’t resolve the lied under oath during his confirmation hearing problem. And it creates a larger problem: a senior member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee is discussing the business of said committee with the envoy of a hostile foreign power.

  183. 183.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: And Schindler said one other agency also too. He’s an asshole, but he’s got good sources. He clearly has a beef with Malcolm Nance, whose sources seem equally accurate, and some of them are probably the same. Nance said other countries have shared with us, and “when we have both sides of the conversation, you will get caught, and people need to be getting lawyers and trying to cut deals.” Rather like Schindler’s “he will die in jail source” intimated…

  185. 185.

    Captain C

    @Kay: I’d apply Trump’s Razor and go with arrogance and ignorance. I also question whether he even thought that far ahead.

  187. 187.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): WaPo only named Britain and Holland. But the indicated there were other European ICs that had similar information.

    As for the various beefs – I have no idea what the issues are, so I basically ignore them as they don’t add anything to trying to track down good information to make sense of this stuff. CI and Russia are not my areas of expertise/specialty. I know enough about the former to understand the basic process and I’m well read enough on the latter to understand what the subject matter experts say, but neither of these are really my areas as a national security professional. I know enough to be able to (hopefully) accurately translate what these guys and gals put out on this stuff for you all here.

  191. 191.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: Hopefully I’m accurately translating things. Otherwise we’re all going to be very confused…

  192. 192.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    From the NY Times story:

    This allowed the upload of as much intelligence as possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American analysts to share information.

    Anybody have any idea how to get in there?

  195. 195.

    Mike G

    Evan Perez just said on CNN, Kislyak wasn’t just ambassador, he was Russia’s “top spy recruiter” in D.C.

  196. 196.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m supplementing with various Twitter feeds and websites. You seem to track what they’re saying but you summarize and explain it more clearly.

  198. 198.

    Yarrow

    I missed this before. Good for Sen. Warren!

    And we need Attorney General Jeff Sessions – who should have never been confirmed in the first place – to resign. We need it now.— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 2, 2017

  199. 199.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Yarrow: What’s that old saw?

    The truth is stranger than fiction?

    What’s that Hollywood conceit – high concept?

    “It’s like Dr Strangelove meets The Manchurian Candidate on steroids…”

  202. 202.

    Yarrow

    More Russian connections:

    By the way, Wilbur Ross was just confirmed at Commerce 72-27, and he has more Russian connections than Aeroflot.— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) March 2, 2017

  204. 204.

    danielx

    As with Scooter Libby….well, hell, he’s a Republican and what’s a little perjury among friends? I can hear it now.

    @Sab:

    Scooter Libby was in fact disbarred by the DC Court of Appeals after his conviction for obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements. However, the idea that Sessions is ever going to be brought up on charges is fantasy.

    Maybe I’m speaking too quickly; a year ago the idea that the Gropenfuhrer would be sitting in the Oval Office today would have been dismissed as fantasy also.

  205. 205.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @trollhattan:

    Sessions-Russia is top story on BBC website. That was fast.

    From the BBC website:

    It has already been established by the CIA and others that Mr Putin’s government did make a concerted effort to help elect Donald Trump and to discredit his opponent Hillary Clinton.
    But a key question remains – how much did the Trump campaign know about this?

    Well, given how much we do know… and how much that looks bad… and Trump’s continuing refusal to release his tax returns…

    I’m guessing the Trump campaign knew all about it every step of the way…

  207. 207.

    Citizen Alan

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    General Sherman should be court-martialed post mortem for failure to hunt down and eliminated Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s ancestors. Never mind they were in Alabama, not Georgia.

    There are times when I wish the Civil War had lasted a bit longer, because I believe W.T. Sherman was correct in believing that if the South had persisted, it would have become a war of extermination for the Yankees, and America would be a better place (and I say this as a Mississippian) had the Confederacy suffered annihilation rather than just military defeat.

    Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late. All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence. — Letter to Major R.M. Sawyer (31 January 1864), from Vicksburg.

  208. 208.

    Citizen Alan

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Really? I wish I could be moved to care. I wonder if Sally Quinn will permit his children by his first wife to attend the funeral.

  211. 211.

    Vhh

    @Adam L Silverman: I am only a physicist doing non classified research for Dept. of Energy, but back when I was doing projects with the Russians in the 80s and 90s, after every visit in either direction, I got a friendly (really) debrief by the local IC person, and it was recorded. No big deal. He deliberately did not talk to me before a visit, as that could be taken as “tasking” that might be endangering. After a few years of this, I once got a visit from four guys from FBI counter intel (so muscular that they resembled an NFL defensive line sitting across my desk). They were curious about what life is like working in a Russian lab, so I told them. They also told me that as a non native fluent Russian speaker, I was likely considered a person of interest by the other side. Years later,a Russian colleague (who had emigrated) told me that their lab security did indeed have my file. I therefore suspect that truly important people like Sen. Sessions and Amb. Kislyak do not encounter each other purely by chance, and their contacts are monitored by both sides.

  212. 212.

    zhena gogolia

    @Smalla:

    I know I’m late here, but this is hilarious. But it needs a tweak. Clinton ended it with “that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” So it should be something like, “that country, the Rossiiskaia federatsiia.”

  213. 213.

    mere mortal

    The strange thing is, he wasn’t asked whether he had contact with the Russians, he was asked what he would do as Attorney General if he discovered such contacts.

    From “The Fugitive”:

    Biggs: Excuse me. Mr. Roosevelt? I am Deputy Biggs, this is Deputy Newman. We’re U.S. marshals. We need some information about a Dr. Lentz who was on staff here. I want to know if he knew or have had any contact with a Dr. Richard Kimble?

    Bones: I haven’t seen Dr. Kimble.

    Biggs: I didn’t ask that.

    Bones: I wouldn’t know. If you’ll excuse me, I have prior obligations to attend to.

    Biggs: I think you’re lying to us.

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