Spicer: Sessions 'was 100 percent straight' on Russia communications

Jeff Sessions “was 100 percent straight” with the Senate Judiciary Committee last month when he denied having any communications with the Russians, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday, accusing Democrats of pushing “a false narrative for political purposes.”

A growing number of Republicans have called on Sessions, now the nation’s attorney general, to recuse himself from any Justice Department investigation into ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign or associates and Russian officials. And many have gone even further, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer among the crowd of Democrats calling on Sessions to resign.


The Washington Post reported late Wednesday that Sessions had two interactions with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., last year. One meeting came in July on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention, where Sessions was approached by a group of ambassadors after delivering an address at a Heritage Foundation event. The second meeting came in September in Sessions’ Senate office. At the time of the September confab, the intelligence community was determining whether Russia had conducted cyberattacks during the U.S. presidential election.

Speaking to Fox News on Thursday morning, Spicer insisted Sessions merely “did his job” as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (20 members of that same Senate panel told the Post that they did not meet with Kislyak last year).

“He was asked very pointedly whether or not there had been any contact with the Trump campaign in the capacity as him being a surrogate. There was not,” Spicer said. “He was 100 percent straight with the committee.”

In a brief interview with NBC News, Sessions said he would recuse himself “whenever it’s appropriate” but argued against the notion that he met with any Russians to discuss a political campaign.

“He did acknowledge that he met in his capacity as a United States senator on the Armed Services Committee with the ambassador on a couple occasions, one being after he had given a speech and someone approached him,” Spicer said. “And as you’ve seen, senators like Ted Cruz have come out and said this is a perfectly normal course of business. So I think this is Democrats continuing to push a false narrative for political purposes.”