Attorney General Jeff Sessions — a top policy adviser to the Trump campaign last year — has flummoxed lawmakers with his accounts of his own contacts with Russian officials during the campaign. | Jason Connolly/Getty Images

House Democrats prepare to pepper Sessions with questions about Papadopoulos

By KYLE CHENEY and ELANA SCHOR 11/07/2017 11:38 AM EST

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will appear before the House Judiciary Committee next week, and Democrats said Tuesday they’re prepared to pepper him with questions about a campaign adviser who attempted to broker a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sessions — a top policy adviser to the Trump campaign last year — has flummoxed lawmakers with his accounts of his own contacts with Russian officials during the campaign. Now he faces new scrutiny about how much he knew about the adviser, George Papadopoulos, who has since pleaded guilty for lying to investigators about his own attempts to parlay contacts with the Russian government into an advantage for the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos told authorities that he urged Trump — in a meeting that included Sessions — to travel to Russia for a meeting with Putin. Sessions reportedly shot down the proposal, but he later told congressional investigators he had no awareness of any Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials.

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“These facts appear to contradict your sworn testimony on several occasions,” Democrats on the House judiciary panel, led by Rep. Jon Conyers Jr. of Michigan, wrote in a letter to Sessions dated Tuesday.

Sessions will appear before the House judiciary panel on Nov. 14. He will also speak that day to the House intelligence committee in a closed-door session, Reuters reported.

Democrats have been eager to grill Sessions for months and have griped openly that their committee’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), has largely stayed on the sidelines of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Goodlatte has pointed to the multiple investigations already underway, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal probe, as a reason to stay out of the way.

Sessions is also bound to face questions about the recent testimony of another campaign adviser, Carter Page, who told the House intelligence committee last week that he informed Sessions in July 2016 about his own planned trip to Moscow, one that has drawn scrutiny from FBI investigators.

Sessions appeared twice before Senate committees to detail his own contacts with Russian government officials during the campaign. But his last appearance came before Papadopoulos’ guilty plea was unsealed last month by Mueller, who’s leading a wide-ranging criminal inquiry into Russia’s attempt to meddle in the 2016 presidential election — and whether any Trump campaign associates aided the scheme.

Sessions told the judiciary panel at his confirmation hearing early this year that he was “not aware of” any Trump campaign affiliates communicating with the Russian government, though it was later revealed that he spoke to Russia’s then-U.S. ambassador Sergey Kislyak during that time period. Then, at a judiciary hearing last month, Sessions testified that he had “no improper involvement” with Russian officials and that he was “not aware of anyone” who had communications with the Russians.

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Democrats said they also intend to ask for details about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russian officials, details about the scope of Sessions’ recusal from matters related to the Trump campaign, calls for Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance to be suspended, and the Justice Department’s decision to settle a case that involved a Kremlin-associated lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last year in Trump Tower.

On the other side of the Capitol, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have urged Republicans to haul Sessions back for further questions about his involvement in Trump campaign aides’ Russia trips. During the attorney general’s appearance last month before the committee, Sessions repeatedly declined to answer questions about his private conversations with Trump concerning the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

The Judiciary panel’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), has yet to make a formal request for Sessions to return. But one of his GOP members, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, also wants Sessions to testify further following the revelations in Papadopoulos’ plea agreement.

“Jeff, you need to tell us everything you know about Russia,” Graham said Sunday on Fox News.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/07/jeff-sessions-george-papadopoulos-russia-questions-244639