David Jackson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Trump rejected the idea of a special prosecutor Monday to look into Russian activity during last year's election, and said he had nothing to do with it it any case.

“I haven’t called Russia in 10 years," Trump said during a meeting of insurance executives as reporters asked him about whether there is a need for special prosecutor on Russia.

Trump initially did not respond to the question, but, as a pool of reporters left the room, the president mouthed the word "no" to his guests.

It's hard to know what Trump meant by his comment about not calling Russia in a decade; the New York businessman visited Moscow in 2013 for a Miss Universe pageant.

He also spoke on the telephone to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 28. During that call, Trump criticized the 2011 treaty with Russian signed by former President Barack Obama, which is called New START.

According to a report by Reuters, Trump asked his aides what the treaty was and then denounced it as favoring Russia.

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Questions arose this weekend when a Republican lawmaker — U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California — said an outside investigation may be required to look into reports that Trump associates contacted Russians during the 2016 campaign. Issa said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who worked on the Trump campaign, may have an inherent conflict of interest.

Sessions, in a brief meeting with reporters Monday, declined to directly address whether he should disqualify himself from overseeing the investigation.

"I would recuse myself on anything that I should recuse myself on,'' Sessions said, declining to elaborate.

Sessions also suggested that he was not aware of recent contacts between the White House and the FBI in which White House officials pressed the FBI to discredit a New York Times article asserting that federal investigators had found repeated communications between Trump associates and Russian intelligence officials during the past year.

"The FBI and the Department of Justice have to remain independent,'' Sessions said. "(But) every contact is not improper.''

The FBI and congressional committees are already conducting investigations, and White House officials and Trump critics are clashing over the outlook for those probes.

In rejecting the idea of an outside investigation, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said there is simply no evidence against Trump or his aides.

"A special prosecutor for what?" Spicer said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said congressional intelligence committees are already looking into Russia's role in the 2016 election, and those are the proper forums. "This is sensitive information that involves how we collect intelligence," Ryan said.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, stressed that the various investigations are still ongoing.

"I don't think we should be drawing any conclusion thus far," Schiff said.

Contributing: Kevin Johnson