The news that Jeff Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice last year may be the political smoking gun Democrats have been looking for. | AP Photo Sessions under fire over Russia meetings Leading Democrats demand his resignation.

Top congressional Democrats called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign Wednesday after revelations that he had met with the Russian ambassador in the months before the election — meetings that Sessions did not disclose during his confirmation hearings.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led the effort late on Wednesday night, accusing Sessions of "lying under oath" during confirmation proceedings about his contacts with the Russians.


"The Attorney General must resign,” Pelosi wrote in a statement. “There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal and financial connections to the Russians.” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House oversight committee, also called on Sessions to resign, as did Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

In a statement in the wee hours of Thursday morning, Sessions said, "I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign."

"I have no idea what this allegation is about," he added in his short statement. "It is false."

The news — first reported by the Washington Post — that Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice last year, including a conversation in Sessions' Senate office, may be the political smoking gun Democrats have been looking for. They've been pushing for months to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate any ties between Donald Trump's campaign and Russian government officials, following a steady drumbeat of news stories saying there had been repeated contacts.

It wasn't just Democrats amping up the pressure. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said a special prosecutor should be appointed if investigators find any evidence of wrongdoing by the Trump campaign, adding that Sessions should recuse himself from any investigation into contacts between the campaign and Russia.

"I don't know that there's anything between the Trump campaign and the Russians. I'm not going to base my decision based on newspaper articles," Graham (R-S.C.) said during a CNN town hall where he appeared with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "If there is something there, and it goes up the chain of investigation, it is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump."

An Obama White House national security official said the administration was gravely concerned in its final days about increasingly apparent ties between Trump associates and Russians, and about what appeared to be promises made by more than one individual to representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin about policy changes that would occur once Trump was sworn in as president.

The senior Obama White House official was not told the names of the specific individuals involved because the official’s portfolio was foreign policy, not intelligence, so they were not briefed on aspects of the investigation involving U.S. persons.

Sessions under fire over Russia meetings

“It seems pretty clear that [former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn] was not a rogue here,” the senior official said. “I don’t believe that Flynn was the only person promising things to the Russians, communicating to them what would happen once the Trump administration came in.”

The senior official was not aware of any specific information suggesting that Sessions was one of the Trump associates discussing potential changes in U.S.-Russia relations once Trump was sworn in.

These latest developments come amid a sharp dispute in Congress over how to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia, with Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees questioning whether their Republican chairmen are fit to lead impartial probes.

House Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Senate Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) both made calls to reporters at the behest of the White House to challenge reports of repeated contacts during the campaign between Trump aides and Russian officials, as The Washington Post reported over the weekend.

And Nunes appeared to prejudge the outcome of his committee’s investigation on Monday, telling reporters that intelligence officials had shared with him the high points of their investigations and that he had seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. The panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chastised Nunes later that day, saying their committee investigation was only in its initial stages and hadn’t even begun collecting evidence.

Many Democrats and a few Republicans — including McCain and Graham — have called for a select committee to investigate the issue, but GOP leaders have so far rejected those calls, which would give them less control over the course of the investigations.

According to the Wednesday Post story, Sessions’ conversations with Kislyak took place in July and September. The second meeting reportedly occurred in Sessions' Senate office. Sessions did not disclose those discussions during his January confirmation hearing in response to a question.

Sessions was asked directly by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.): “If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”

Sessions responded, “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

In a separate exchange, Sessions was pressed on whether he would recuse himself from an investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. At the time, he said, "I don't think I've made any comment on this issue. ... I would review it and try to do the right thing as to whether not it would stay within the jurisdiction of the attorney general or not."

Sarah Isgur Flores, a Sessions spokesperson, said: "There was absolutely nothing misleading about his answer," during the confirmation process, noting that he had over 25 conversations with ambassadors as a member of the Armed Services Committee.

"He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee," Flores said.

A senior Trump campaign national security adviser confirmed the broad outlines of the Wednesday Post story, and said that Sessions not only spoke briefly with Kislyak at the GOP convention in Cleveland, but that the senator was then invited to a lunch at the ambassador’s house to continue the conversation.

After discussing the potential downside of the lunch given the allegations of Russian hacking of the election, Sessions declined the lunch, according to the senior campaign adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is being considered for jobs in the Trump administration.

Sessions spoke to Kislyak at an event sponsored by the State Department and Heritage Foundation that brought about 50 ambassadors to both parties’ nominating conventions in July, the adviser said.

At the GOP one, Sessions gave a keynote luncheon address, where he was clearly identified as a senior national security adviser to Trump. As he was walking out, he was approached by a few of the ambassadors, including Kislyak.

“He had individual sidebar conversations with the ambassadors,” the advisor said of Sessions. “There were a lot of other people there, a big scrum of people walking and talking. I saw them talking, but I don’t know what they said.”

The adviser said there was nothing nefarious about the conversations between the ambassador and Sessions, and that that is perhaps why the senator didn’t mention it during his confirmation hearings or in other venues.

“I don’t know why he would do that, if that’s what he did,” the adviser said. “Maybe he thought [the conversation] was in his capacity on [the Senate] Armed Services Committee. But why the senator wouldn’t explain the conversations, I don’t know.”

Josh Gerstein and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this story.