“Did Attorney General Sessions decline, or recuse himself?” Rep. Adam Schiff, right, asked on Twitter Monday. | Getty Schiff: How did Sessions respond to Comey?

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee wants to know whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions was involved in the Justice Department’s decision not to issue a statement, requested by FBI Director James Comey, to rebut claims that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower.

“Did Attorney General Sessions decline, or recuse himself?” Rep. Adam Schiff said on Twitter Monday.


Schiff’s Tweet appears to be an effort to ensure Sessions follows through on his pledge to recuse himself from investigations into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Sessions promised to step aside last week after revelations that he did not disclose to Congress two meetings he had with Russia’s ambassador during the presidential campaign.

Comey asked the Justice Department over the weekend to publicly deny the wiretap claim, which Trump made in a Tweet on Saturday morning. The Justice Department so far has not complied with Comey’s request, which was first reported by The New York Times.

Schiff’s intelligence panel is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including whether there was any collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The California Democrat also said on Twitter Monday, “We must accept possibility that @POTUS does not know fact from fiction, right from wrong. That wild claims are not strategic, but worse.”

Schiff later said in an appearance on MSNBC that the Justice Department should “tell the country whether there was ever a wiretap.”

“We don't need this investigation to tell us what the attorney general can very simply, but of course this is all giving the president way too much credit that there's really any reality behind this,” Schiff said.

Many lawmakers have expressed bafflement and outrage over Trump’s wiretap claims, with most Republicans declining to defend Trump in talk-show appearances on Sunday.

Sen. Marco Rubio, for instance, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” he had seen “no evidence” to back up Trump’s claims. Rubio is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Trump’s ties to Moscow.

“I'd imagine the president and the White House in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation,” the Florida Republican said. “The president put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to.”

Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.