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<\/a>Former Sen. Jeff Sessions recently took office as President Trump\u2019s new attorney general<\/p><\/div>\n
A former U.S. Justice Department official says the liberal outrage over Attorney General Jeff Sessions having contact with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign is much ado about nothing and Democrats are doing whatever they can to thwart the Trump agenda.<\/p>\n
He also told WND and Radio America\u00a0reports of a slush fund at the Justice Department created during the Obama years that is funneling\u00a0money to liberal activist groups are a big deal and further evidence that Democrats turned a blind eye to the Justice Department when far more serious things were happening.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the Sessions story that had the media in a frenzy Thursday after accusations the attorney general\u00a0misled senators during his confirmation hearings in January.<\/p>\n
At that hearing, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., cited a breaking CNN report that officials in the Trump campaign discussed the election on multiple occasions with agents of the Russian government. When asked by Franken what he would do if the report was proven true, Sessions indicated he was unaware of such activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians. And I\u2019m unable to comment on it,\u201d said Sessions during the confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n
Then, the Washington Post reported Wednesday night that Sessions had met twice with\u00a0Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2016. One occasion was a sideline chat after a speech at a conference held during the\u00a0Republican National Convention in July\u00a0and the other was at Sessions\u2019 Senate office in September, with two of his aides present.<\/p>\n
Democrats accused Sessions of perjury for his answer\u00a0to Franken and for not clarifying the statement in writing after the hearing.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Sessions recused himself from Department of Justice investigations<\/a> into alleged Russian meddling in the election, and he tried to clarify his earlier statement.<\/p>\n Sessions insisted none of his conversations with the Russian ambassador were related to the presidential campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me be clear: I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the idea that I was part of a \u2018continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government is totally false. That is the question that Sen. [Al] Franken asked me at the hearing, and that\u00a0\u2026 is the question that I responded to.\u201d<\/p>\n So is Sessions in real political or legal trouble for his testimony under oath, or are his critics deliberately blurring the line between communication about the campaign and communication for other purposes?<\/p>\n Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky told WND and Radio America\u00a0the controversy is way overblown.<\/p>\n \u201cThose calls for his resignation are all overblown, and there\u2019s no reason for him to resign,\u201d said von Spakovsky, who now runs the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. \u201cThere\u2019s really nothing to this story.\u201d<\/p>\n He said\u00a0the Democrats are still in shock over losing the elections and are lashing out in every possible direction.<\/p>\n \u201cThey did not want Jeff Sessions to become attorney general because he\u2019s a conservative, rule-of-law type of guy,\u201d von Spakovsky said. \u201cThey\u2019re seizing on this, even though there\u2019s nothing really to it when you dig down into it, because they want to oppose anything the attorney general might do, such as actually start enforcing our immigration laws. That\u2019s the real goal here.\u201d<\/p>\n Von Spakovsky said it\u2019s important\u00a0to understand Franken\u2019s question in its proper context.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear Sen. Franken is asking about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries or agents about the election. Sen. Sessions had no such meetings with the Russians over the elections as a surrogate of the campaign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He also said the meetings in question hardly qualify as election collusion.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of them was a conference at which there was a hundred people, ambassadors and their staff. They had been invited to observe the RNC convention by the State Department. The Heritage Foundation, a number of other organizations and the U.S. State Department had this conference at which Jeff Sessions was the keynote speaker,\u201d von Spakovsky said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that he engaged in some hush-hush conspiracy talk with the Russian ambassador in a conference with a hundred folks where he\u2019s giving the keynote speech is just ridiculous,\u201d said von Spakovsky<\/p>\n \u201cThe only other meeting was a meeting when he was a member of the (Senate) Armed Services Committee and he had a meeting with the Russian ambassador last year in which they talked about relations between the countries; no discussion of the election,\u201d said von Spakovsky, noting Sessions met with roughly two-dozen ambassadors in 2016.<\/p>\n Several Republicans joined\u00a0Democrats in demanding Sessions recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia\u2019s alleged meddling in the 2016 elections and any collusion it had with the Trump campaign. Von Spakovsky said there\u00a0really was nothing for Sessions to recuse himself from.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s premature because at the moment there\u2019s nothing in front of the attorney general. The FBI has not sent over any kind of investigative file for him to look at,\u201d von Spakovsky said.<\/p>\n Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America\u2019s independent news network.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n