This is gonna make Watergate seem like a high school spat.
āā¦as I understood it at the time.ā
Oh fuuuuckkk you, buddy.
āMy reply to the question of Sen. Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time,ā he said.
Nope. Neither honest, nor correct. Not even a close call.
Franken: "CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week that included information that quote, āRussian operatives claimed to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.ā These documents also allegedly say quote, āThere was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trumpās surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.ā
āNow, again, Iām telling you this as itās coming out, so you know. But if itās true, itās obviously extremely serious and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?ā
Sessions: āSenator Franken, Iām not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didnāt have ā did not have communications with the Russians, and Iām unable to comment on it.ā
Sessions gave an unqualifed denial of having ācommunications with Russiansā. Not " Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries" or on the subject of being āpart of a ācontinuing exchange of informationā during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian governmentā.
A complete unqualified blanket denial.
Therefore, a straight-out lie. Perjury.
A lawyerly response but why did he not disclose that he met with the Ambassador?
Quavering, weakā¦he himself makes the case heās confused and easily duped. We deserve better.
How does he know itās āfalseā given that he claims he canāt remember what he discussed with Putinās stooges?
Yes, the totally obvious thing was to answer āI did meet with the Russian ambassador twice. The first time we talked about A, B, and C and the second time about D, E, and F. I was of course very careful to speak only in my role as Senator, not anything to do with the next administration, and made it clear to him that that was the case.ā
He didnāt. Heās covering up.
P.S: I just read what rockgolf wrote. Itās correct. The āandā in his reply disconncects the surrogate part (which he did not comment on) from the ādid not have communicationsā part.
Worse, later in writing when he had time to carefully consider his statements:
Leahy: Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?"
Sessions: āNo.ā
So, another chance to point out the āabout the electionā bit but he did not, intentionally leaving the impression of no meeting.
He was attempting to end any inquiry right there. If he wasnāt worried about it he would have been forthcoming.
He was a Senator and lawyer of long experience. He should have known saying āI havenāt met with the Russiansā without some hedge (1) was going to be caught and (2) gave him no wiggle room. He should be fired for being a really bad lawyer as much as being a really bad liar.
Nothing was served by his lies. He had an easy way out. He should have taken it.
At the end of the press conference, Sessions added: āThatās what I focused my answer on,ā referring to the CNN report. āIn retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, āBut I did meet one Russian official a couple of times.āā
Franken didnāt ask Sessions if HE had met with any Russian officials. Sessions volunteered the (false) information that he hadnāt met with any Russian officials. I donāt quite see how slowing down would have led him to give precisely the opposite answer.
Am particularly wondering how it is supposed to be plausible that a senator would be exercising his Armed Services Committee responsibilities (rather than anything involved with his campaign role) by meeting the Russian ambassador on the occasion of the Republican convention. Is perturbing.
To say the least.
You can show the calendar and minutes of the meetingsāespecially the July meetingāto the Special Prosecutorā¦ Madame Special Prosecutor
Basically, heās a liar (perjurer) or heās utterly incompetent. Either way, he has no business being the countryās top law man. Regardless of whether there was any āthere, there,ā his failure to disclose it is inexcusable and the only responsible course would be his resignation. But Iām not holding my breath on that.
NOT good enough.
you can not have confidence in an AG who commits perjury and can not be trusted to run an investigation.
never mind the total hypocrisy of it allā¦butā¦WHAT ELSE is he hiding?
and what is he hindering and protecting the puppet from?
and just why should we believe he isnt?
Democrats MUST continue to call for his resignation ,
he has lost the trust to lead the office he was appointed to.
Coretta Scott King is smiling looking down on this racist.
āIn retrospect, I should have slowed down and [not lied].ā
Lying piece of excrement.
You just donāt understand. He said he ādid not have communications with the Russians.ā He didnāt deny that he had a conversation with a Russian (the ambassador). And if that doesnāt work for you, heāll be happy to explain he was referring to a punk rock group called āThe Russians,ā which he totally didnāt have any contact with and they totally exist because he heard they do from someone or other though he couldnāt tell you who or when he heard it.
His explanation for his testimony is plausible. That would probably have been the end of the matter. However, I believe (need to see the full transcript) he also made a comment at one point about ambassadorās liking to talk about politics. That would seem to suggest that the campaign may have come up during his meeting in September.
So let me get this straight;
Sessions ādid not do anything wrongā and ādid not do what he is accused ofā
BUT
He is recusing himself ANYWAY?!?!?
Why? If you didnāt do anything, why are you recusing yourself?
I wonder if it was because the FBI was refusing to share any info with him, because HE is under investigation by them.