Amid a swirl of controversy over his contact with the Russian ambassador, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that he will recuse himself from any investigations into the Kremlin’s interference with the 2016 election.

“I should not be involved with investigating a campaign I had a role in,” he said at an afternoon press conference at the Justice Department.

Sessions, who was a key Trump surrogate and foreign-policy liaison, said that over the last several weeks he had discussed with senior officials whether he should recuse himself from campaign-related probes.

“They said that since I had involvement in the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” he said. “I believe those recommendations are right and just, and therefore, I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign.”

Sessions faced mounting pressure from Democrats and Republicans to step aside after The Washington Post revealed that the then-senator had spoken with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US, on two separate occasions during the presidential campaign.

The attorney general failed to mention those conversations at his Senate confirmation hearing in January, despite being asked by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) what he would do if he became aware that someone with the Trump campaign had communicated with the Kremlin.

Sessions responded that he “did not have communications with the Russians.”

On Thursday, he defended his answer as “honest and correct as I understood it at the time.”

“In retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, ‘But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times,’” he said.

Sessions also vehemently denied discussing campaign issues with Kislyak, who he spoke to in mid-July after a Heritage Foundation event at the Republican National Convention, and again on Sept. 8 during a private meeting in his office.

By late July, the FBI had already begun investigating whether the Russian government had hacked the Democratic National Committee.

“Let me be clear, I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said Thursday.

Despite calls for his resignation from some Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, President Trump stuck by Sessions, saying that he has “total” confidence in his attorney general.

Asked if Sessions should have testified truthfully about his contacts with Kislyak, Trump said: “I think he probably did,” adding that he “wasn’t aware at all” that the conversations had taken place.

Trump didn’t think Sessions had to recuse himself — but a chorus of Republicans and Democrats disagreed.

“AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself,” tweeted Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Many Republicans — including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) — also came out in support of Sessions stepping aside for such probes.

Now that Sessions has recused himself, Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente will take over campaign-related investigations.

Democrats are pushing for a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation — but it would be up to Boente to appoint one.