Sessions: DOJ regulations mandated my recusal from Trump-Russia probe
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Department of Justice regulations designed to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest mandated his recusal from the Department’s Trump-Russia probe.
“I recused myself not because of any assertive wrongdoing or any belief that I may have been involved in any wrongdoing in the campaign but because of a Department of Justice regulation … that regulation states in effect that a Department employee should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they served as a campaign advisor,” Sessions told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a hearing on Tuesday.
Sessions told the committee that his recusal from the probe did not in any way negate his authority to recommend the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
“I recused myself from any investigation into the campaigns for president, but I did not recuse myself from defending my honor against scurrilous and false accusations,” Sessions insisted.
Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May wrote a memorandum to President Donald Trump recommending Comey’s dismissal.
Sessions said the decision to fire Comey was so as to have “a fresh start” at the FBI and had nothing to do with Comey’s handling of the Bureau’s Russia probe.
Sessions recused himself in March following reports that he had twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
This article is republished with permission from Talk Media News
Bryan is an award-winning political journalist who has extensive experience covering Congress and Maryland state government.
His work includes coverage of the election of Donald Trump, the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and attorneys general William Barr and Jeff Sessions-as well as that of the Maryland General Assembly, Gov. Larry Hogan, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bryan has broken stories involving athletic and sexual assault scandals with the Baltimore Post-Examiner.
His original UMBC investigation gained international attention, was featured in People Magazine and he was interviewed by ABC’s “Good Morning America” and local radio stations. Bryan broke subsequent stories documenting UMBC’s omission of a sexual assault on their daily crime log and a federal investigation related to the university’s handling of an alleged sexual assault.