Sessions: Mueller hasn't interviewed me in Russia probe The attorney general also declines to answer questions about his private conversations with President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday told senators that he has not been interviewed by the special counsel probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, but he declined to answer questions on a variety of topics about his private conversations with President Donald Trump.

Until the president waives any claims to executive privilege, Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee, he would not address questions about his talks with Trump concerning the federal investigation into Russian meddling, the firing of former FBI Director James Comey or other high-profile issues.


Sessions told senators that Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the Department of Justice’s Russia probe, had not interviewed him or sought an interview.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has taken over supervision of the Russia probe, has been interviewed by Mueller’s team. Sessions recused himself from the investigation after news reports that he discussed policy issues with Moscow’s former ambassador while he advised Trump's White House campaign.

Sessions did not discuss whether he had provided documents or other materials to Mueller, and his spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, said she did not know whether he had been asked for those.

The attorney general initially hesitated when Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked about his interactions with Mueller.

"I'd be pleased to answer that. I'm not sure I should without clearing that with the special counsel," Sessions said, though after a few moments, he said there had been no interview. "No. ... The answer is no."

Asked later by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) whether he would meet with Mueller if asked, Sessions replied: “Absolutely.”

The attorney general also said he had tried to honestly answer senators’ questions about his contacts with Russian operatives. In one of the hearing’s most heated exchanges, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) accused Sessions of giving evolving answers, saying he went from denying meeting any Russians during the campaign to saying he never discussed an effort to interfere with the election.

“That to me is moving the goalposts every time. … [B]y the end, we’re going to a 75-yard field goal,” Franken said. “Saying ‘I didn’t discuss interfering with the election’ … that’s a very different bar than, ‘I can tell you I did not meet with any Russians.’”

Sessions bristled at the accusations, which he called “totally unfair.”

“I think it was a good-faith response to a dramatic event at the time, and I don’t think it’s fair for you to suggest otherwise,” he said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee chairman, said he and the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, received a briefing from Comey in March that would likely resolve Franken’s concerns about Sessions’ conduct, but he said the FBI wouldn’t let him share that information.

During the hearing, Sessions stuck to his earlier explanation of Comey’s firing, which the Department of Justice has suggested flowed from Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.

“I don’t think it’s been fully understood, the significance of the error that Mr. Comey made on the Clinton matter,” Sessions told senators. He said the FBI chief made a serious mistake by effectively closing the Clinton investigation without first seeking the concurrence of top Justice Department officials.

But he declined to address a question from Feinstein about whether Trump fired Comey to remove “the cloud” of the federal Russia probe. Later in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) expressed doubt that Comey’s alleged transgressions in the Clinton email probe in 2016 led to his firing in May of the following year, saying he didn’t understand why it took several months to fire him if that was the reason.

Sessions suggested that before May the president didn’t fully appreciate the significance of how the FBI chief handled the Clinton probe.

“I’m not sure he ever grasped the full import of that,” the attorney general said. “It’s something everybody familiar with the Department of Justice had been buzzing about for months.”

Sessions also said Comey compounded his mistake in early May by telling a congressional hearing that he’d handle the Clinton email matter the same way if forced to make the same choices again.

“That was a fairly stunning event,” the attorney general said. “It did highlight the problem more significantly than it had been before.”

Sessions sparred with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) about what the senator said was foot-dragging over responses to congressional inquiries, and the attorney general would not discuss conversations with Trump about whether the president tried to get the Justice Department to drop its prosecution of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for defying a court order.

“I cannot comment on a private conversation I may have had with the president,” the attorney general replied.

Sessions said he was “not aware” whether Trump’s pardon of Arpaio went through the usual vetting process at the Justice Department, but he said that the president is not required to make that consultation and that many previous presidents have issued pardons unilaterally.

“The president has the power to issue pardons with or without the Department of Justice involved. That has been done in the past in some very dramatic cases. This pardon was well within the power of the president to do,” Sessions said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked Sessions about Trump’s role in the interviews for a prospective U.S. attorney nominee in New York, saying it would be “quite unusual” for the president to be involved. Trump also attended an interview with his nominee to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie Liu, according to a questionnaire submitted to the committee ahead of her confirmation last month.

Sessions could not immediately point to instances where other presidents interviewed U.S. attorney candidates, though he said presidents had previous relationships with some nominees. “It is his appointment,” he said.

Sessions, who has sometimes had a strained relationship with Trump, passed up a chance Wednesday to criticize tweets the president has issued attacking the press and calling for news outlets to lose their licenses for churning out what he considers “fake news.”

Asked by Blumenthal to declare that such an act would be illegal, the attorney general demurred. “The president is open and direct. He expresses himself when he wants to express himself. It’s a free country,” Sessions said.

“It’s a free country, but this issue is profoundly serious,” Blumenthal replied, noting an attempt by President Nixon’s allies to strip licenses from some broadcasters.

“I guess I would say the FCC would need to decide how to handle those matters with propriety and integrity and consistent with law, and the president can make his own expressions,” the attorney general said.

Despite some other testy exchanges, Sessions did tell Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that he was open to working with her and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on pending legislation requiring new disclosures from those buying online political ads, a direct response to the Russia probe that later Wednesday attracted backing from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“In this new, fast-paced world of technology, perhaps there are ways to update” the rules for online advertising, Sessions told Klobuchar. “I’d be pleased to work with you.”

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.