Some legal analysts sympathetic to President Donald Trump have suggested that Attorney General Jeff Sessions (pictured) should not be recused from the Michael Cohen matter. | Brynn Anderson/AP Photo Justice Department confirms Sessions’ recusal from election inquiries The statement follows a report that the attorney general is not recused from the investigation into Michael Cohen.

The Justice Department reiterated on Tuesday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not overseeing any investigations related to the 2016 presidential election, following a report that Sessions has not recused himself from the inquiry into Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney.

“The attorney general has been clear that his recusal covers ‘any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States’ based on the relevant DOJ regulations,” Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Flores said. “Department officials decline, however, to discuss recusals from specific ongoing investigations because doing so could confirm the existence of ongoing investigations or the scope or nature of those ongoing investigations.”


Flores’ statement came after Bloomberg News reported that Sessions had declined to recuse himself from the investigation that led to search warrants being executed at Cohen’s New York home, office and hotel room earlier this month. Sessions is still being briefed about the investigation and could wind up recusing himself from specific parts of the inquiry, Bloomberg said.

At least one aspect of the investigation into Cohen’s dealings appears to bear on the 2016 presidential campaign: Lawyers for Cohen have confirmed that among the records prosecutors sought in the searches was material relating to a $130,000 payment that Cohen arranged to Stormy Daniels just before the election. Daniels, the adult-film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has called the payment “hush money” aimed at keeping quiet a sexual encounter she had with Trump a decade earlier.

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Trump has blasted the raids on Cohen as “disgraceful,” and has repeatedly complained about Sessions’ recusal from the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — an inquiry now headed by special counsel Robert Mueller. While the investigation involving Cohen may have some connections to Mueller’s inquiry, it is being led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.

Some legal analysts sympathetic to Trump have suggested that Sessions should not be recused from the Cohen matter.

“If the Southern District involves matters unrelated to Russian collusion and he’s not a witness of the SDNY case, he should return and supervise it rather than have his deputy supervise it,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told POLITICO last week.

Dershowitz said Sessions’ decision to step aside from matters related to Russia was not a sufficient basis to recuse himself in the Cohen investigation.

“That’s not enough of a relation,” he said. “It’d have to be substantively related. I don’t think it’s there. It’s related in this sense [that] they’re going to try to gang up on Cohen and get as many technical crimes as they can.”

Justice Department officials have stressed that recusal decisions are typically made shortly before matters are about to be presented to an official for decision. So, Sessions may not have recused himself yet because he may not have been asked to approve or disapprove any of the actions that investigators have taken so far involving Cohen.

However, it’s unclear why Sessions would receive any briefing on aspects of the Cohen inquiry related to the 2016 election given that last March the attorney general’s chief of staff directed that such information not be relayed to Sessions.

“You should instruct members of your staffs not to brief the Attorney General (or other officials in the Office of the Attorney General) about” matters related in any way to the 2016 campaigns, Jody Hunt, Sessions’ chief of staff at the time, wrote in an email to top Justice Department leaders dated March 2, 2017.

Department officials did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the recusal. Sessions is scheduled to appear before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday.

Questions about Sessions’ role in the Cohen investigation have also been fueled by the fact that the acting U.S. attorney for Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, is recused from the matter even though his office is leading the investigation. Court papers filed in New York in connection with efforts by attorneys for Trump and Cohen to prevent investigators from delving into the seized records show that the No. 2 official in Berman’s office, Robert Khuzami, is leading the inquiry.

A spokesman for the office declined to comment on the reason for Berman’s recusal. Justice Department policy, however, calls for recusal decisions for U.S. attorneys to be made by officials in Washington.

Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.

