Tierney Sneed contributed reporting.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said Thursday that “there’s no real revelation” in the Washington Post report Wednesday night that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the 2016 campaign.
Asked what he would do as attorney general about allegations that members of the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russians during the campaign at his confirmation hearing on Jan. 10, Sessions responded: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”
He later denied in a written statement to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) that he “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after Election Day.”
“Well, the best I can tell, there’s no real revelation, which is interesting,” Blunt told reporters Thursday. “He was asked a question about whether he’d talked to the Russians about the campaign, and he said ‘no.’ As far as I know, that is the truth, and he says that’s the truth. And I think what he said this morning was that he’d recuse himself if at some point it became appropriate to do that, and I continue to think he’ll be the best judge of knowing when that moment is.”
A White House official told TPM Thursday that he had “met with the ambassador in an official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is entirely consistent with his testimony.”
One reporter pointed out to Blunt that Sessions had volunteered during his confirmation hearing that he hadn’t been in contact with the Russians.
“The question that I know that was asked was, ‘Have you talked to the Russians about the campaign?’” Blunt responded. “So you may know more about that.”
He added later: “You know, I’d have to look at the whole context of that discussion to know if that’s right or not. But if his answer is he didn’t talk to the Russians about the campaign, that that’s what he says, I have no reason to believe that’s not true. I know him, he’s a truthful man, and he will do the right thing if there’s ever a referral to the Justice Department, which I’m not aware that that’s about to happen.”
Blunt also said there technically wasn’t anything for Sessions to recuse himself from yet, as there had been no referral made to the Justice Department.
