“I think there’s plenty of precedent for” Attorney General Jeff Sessions declining to answer questions, Sen. Chuck Grassley said. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Grassley won’t force Sessions to answer Trump-Comey questions The attorney general refused to discuss his private conversations with the president — even though he hasn’t invoked executive privilege.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) does not plan to force Attorney General Jeff Sessions to answer questions about his private conversations with President Donald Trump concerning the firing of FBI Director James Comey, a spokesman said Friday.

Sessions sidestepped repeated questions about the Comey firing and the federal probe of Russia's election meddling during testimony before the Judiciary panel earlier this week, dismissing a bid by the committee's nine Democrats to force him to formally invoke executive privilege in declining to answer questions.


While Democratic frustration simmers over Sessions' ability to evade questions about his private conversations with the president without claiming executive privilege, Grassley appears to have concluded that the matter isn't worth pressing because the Trump administration would likely prevail.

"No president is likely to invoke executive privilege until forced to do so," Grassley spokesman George Hartmann said by email. "In this case, it’s premature and probably not a legitimate use of committee time and resources to force the issue."

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Grassley said in a Thursday interview that “I don’t think you can find fault with Sessions not” discussing his private talks with Trump given that former President Barack Obama's first attorney general, Eric Holder, resisted a formal assertion of executive privilege for months during the congressional investigation into "Fast and Furious," a Department of Justice gun-smuggling operation gone awry.

“I think there’s plenty of precedent for” Sessions declining to answer questions, Grassley added. "I wouldn’t feel that way if I hadn’t been treated that way myself by Holder."

Congressional Republicans railed for months against Holder after the Fast and Furious probe began in 2011, and Grassley himself harshly criticized Holder for withholding information. The House GOP issued a subpoena and later held Holder in contempt of Congress as a means to pry loose a formal claim of executive privilege. Obama ultimately invoked executive privilege to shield Holder's DOJ from providing documents on the initiative after months of congressional requests.

But Grassley's spokesman asserted a notable difference between the Fast and Furious matter and Sessions' discussions with Trump over the Comey firing, which Trump has said was motivated in part by the federal probe of his associates' ties to Russia.

"Unlike Attorney General Holder during the Fast & Furious investigation, this case involves communications between the president and a close adviser, which seems on its face to meet the basic elements of executive privilege, and thus would be a challenge for Congress to overcome," Hartmann added.

Democrats on the committee are not about to drop the issue.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in an interview that "a number of us feel the urgency of putting some boundaries on this seemingly endless claim of executive privilege without the president even invoking it."

Assuming that Trump would win a battle over an executive privilege claim regarding the Comey firing is "questionable," Blumenthal added, because "there would be a challenge based on his tweets and his comments that seemingly waive the privilege because he’s commented on his conversations with the DOJ — including Attorney General Sessions, saying he never should have recused himself."

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in an interview that "I think there is a double standard" being applied to Sessions versus Holder, noting the long-standing friendship between Grassley and the attorney general, a former GOP senator who sat on the judiciary panel.

Sessions ought to be pushed further to address his discussions with Trump about Comey’s firing, Durbin added, but it’s “not likely to occur, under the circumstances.”

Sessions also declined to address questions about private conversations regarding Trump’s controversial pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio under questioning from California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, during his Wednesday testimony.

“Until such time as the president makes a decision with respect to this [executive] privilege, I cannot waive that privilege myself or otherwise compromise his ability to assert it,” Sessions said.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.