Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) says Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE “lied” about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the 2016 presidential race.

“It’s clear he lied,” Ryan said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day." "I mean, he said he was a surrogate and he then went on to say he never had any meetings in any capacity with Russian officials, let alone the top Russian spy in the United States.”

Ryan, who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for House Democratic leader, said Sessions’s interactions with Russia are the latest in a series of questionable contacts between Moscow and President Trump’s campaign.

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“Flynn lied, Trump has not shown his taxes, you go back to Manafort in the middle of the summer and his relationship with Russian folks in the Ukraine,” he said, referencing Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned for misleading Vice President Pence and other top White House officials about his conversations with Russia's ambassador, and Paul Manafort, one of Trump's campaign managers, whose name was discovered in a hand-written ledger showing undisclosed cash payments from Ukraine's pro-Russia government.

“I mean, what the hell’s going on here?” Ryan asked. "Why is everybody lying? We need to know what’s going on here.”

Reports emerged Wednesday that Sessions spoke twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 race.

Sessions did not disclose his talks with Kislyak during his confirmation hearings for attorney general, testifying under oath that he “did not have communications with the Russians.”

The former Republican senator from Alabama reportedly spoke with Kislyak informally at a July Heritage Foundation event held during the Republican National Convention.

Sessions then talked with Kislyak via phone in September.

Reports emerged last month that top aides and allies on Trump’s White House run were in recurring contact with senior Russian intelligence officials.

Sessions on Thursday offered to recuse himself from any federal probe into ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign.