Russian Hacking Was Prominent In Campaign When Sessions Met Ambassador

This post has been updated.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions encountered the Russian ambassador twice during the 2016 campaign, and by Sessions’ second interaction with Sergey Kislyak, talk of Russia’s role in hacking the Democratic National Committee already was playing an outsized role in the election.

The then-senator did not reveal that he had met with the Russian official during his confirmation hearing. Sessions has dismissed concern about his failure to disclose the matter, and his spokeswoman emphasized that that at the hearing Sessions was asked specifically about discussions with Russian officials about the election.

There’s no evidence Sessions and Kislyak discussed the campaign in either of their two meetings. Concerns about Russian cyberattacks on the DNC and other organizations, as well as ties between certain Trump associates and Russia, were all over the news by the time of their second meeting, however.

In the days immediately preceding that Capitol Hill sitdown, Hillary Clinton hinted there might be a link between the DNC hack and Trump’s candidacy, while Trump heaped praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump even appeared on the Kremlin-aligned RT television network on the same day Sessions sat down with Kislyak, telling Larry King that it’s “unlikely” Russia was trying to influence the U.S. election.

That hackers associated with the Russian government gained access to the Democratic National Committee’s emails and opposition research data was reported in the Washington Post by the time of the Republican National Convention in July, where Sessions first encountered Kislyak. But the hack was not yet prominent in the news, and emails stolen from the DNC had not yet been published.

Still, Sessions reportedly thought it would be bad optics to attend a lunch at the Russian ambassador’s because he was worried about reports that Russian government hacking was interfering in the election. An unnamed former national security adviser to Trump’s campaign told Politico Thursday that Sessions decided not to have lunch with Kislyak because of the allegations.

During the convention, members of the Trump campaign also reportedly pushed for changes in the Republican platform that would soften language supporting Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russian aggression. Paul Manafort, then a campaign adviser, denied that the campaign was involved, and the story remained relatively under the radar.

Sessions’ first encounter with Kislyak, on the sidelines of the GOP convention at a Heritage Foundation event with several foreign ambassadors, appears to have been brief and took place before Russian hacking efforts were a prominent subject in the campaign. His second meeting with the Russian ambassador, a sit-down in his Capitol Hill office that his staff has said was held in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, came after much more information on the hacks had been surfaced.

The former senator met with Kislyak on Sept. 8, according to the Washington Post. By that time, WikiLeaks had published emails from staffers at the DNC and the FBI had announced that it was investigating the hack. The New York Times had reported that intelligence officials believed the Russian government was behind the hack, and NBC News had reported that intelligence officials believed the Russian government was behind hacks into some state elections systems, too.

The news had long worked its way to Trump, whose campaign counted Sessions as a key surrogate. Not long after the GOP convention, Trump said at a press conference that he hoped Russia would find emails missing from Hillary Clinton’s private email server. In mid-August, Trump also received his first classified intelligence briefing. Those briefing materials showed links between the Russian government and the DNC hack, NBC News later reported.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, also resigned before Sessions and Kislyak sat down on Capitol Hill as questions mounted about his ties to pro-Russia Ukrainian officials. His resignation came just a few days after the New York Times reported on undisclosed payments to Manafort from a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party, though Manafort denied accepting the funds.

The U.S. intelligence community would not go on to formally accuse Russia of directing hacks against Democratic organizations and political operatives in order to interfere in the election until early October. But by the time Sessions met with Kislyak in September, he’d only have needed to pick up a newspaper or turn on a TV to know that he was about to sit down with a diplomat from a nation being accused of interfering in U.S. elections both in the press and on the campaign trail.