Presumably under pressure to protect the president without perjuring himself, Attorney General Jeff Sessions found new and creative ways to deflect hours of probing questions by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, most of which amounted to a variation on a familiar theme: “I don’t recall.”

In his opening remarks, Sessions explained that he “[did] not have any recollection of meeting or talking to the Russian ambassador or any Russian official” outside of the two conversations he had already disclosed. If other interactions had happened, he said, as former F.B.I. director James Comey reportedly testified may have occurred at the Mayflower Hotel last year, he “did not remember it.” Pressed by the committee’s chairman, Senator Richard Burr, Sessions seemed apologetic about his memory. “I stretched my—wracked my brain to make sure I could answer any of these questions properly,” he said. But he could not recall.

Asked by Senator John Warner to recall his two conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Sessions could not. “Certainly I can assure you, nothing improper, if I had had a conversation with him. And it’s conceivable that that occurred. I just don’t remember it.”

Warner followed up: “But there was nothing in your notes or memory so that when had a chance to correct the record about the other two sessions in response to Senator [Al] Franken and Senator [Patrick] Leahy, this one didn’t pop into your memory, that in an overabundance of caution, that you ought to report this session as well?” Sessions replied that he “possibly had a meeting, but I still do not recall it.”

Senator Kamala Harris cut straight to the point in her first question: “Just on the first page of your three pages of written testimony, you wrote ‘nor I do recall,’ ‘do not have recollection,’ ‘do not remember it.’ My question is, for any of your testimony today, did you refresh your memory with any written documents be they your calendar, written correspondence, e-mails, notes of any sort?” Sessions replied that he had tried, but that the entire Trump campaign was an “extraordinary” experience. “You’re moving so fast that you don’t keep notes,” he said.

By the end of the hearing, the attorney general had testified under oath that he did not recall more than 30 times.

At one point, Sessions invoked his “right” not to answer questions because President Donald Trump might theoretically invoke executive privilege in the future—a “right,” Senator Angus King noted, that does not exist. If the president hasn’t asserted privilege, King argued, correctly, Sessions cannot claim its blanket protection.