Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday called Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ two meetings with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign a “nothing burger,” breaking with several senior Republican leaders.
“What we are seeing is a lot of political theater,” Cruz said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The Texas senator said that Sessions’ meetings with ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which he did not disclose during his confirmation hearings and were first reported by the Washington Post Wednesday night, were a routine part of serving in Congress.
“This morning, everyone is in high dudgeon about the meeting,” Cruz said. “The underlying meeting is a nothing burger. It’s what senators do every day. Meeting with foreign ambassadors, that’s part of the job.”
“I think everyone is getting all worked up because it’s a chance to beat up the attorney general and to beat up the President,” he continued. “But I think the underlying meeting is he is doing his job.”
Top Republicans including House Oversight Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have said that Sessions should recuse himself from investigations related to Russia because of the meetings. Many Democratic leaders are going further, saying that Sessions should resign for lying “under oath” when he told Congress in his testimony that he had no contact with Russian officials.
Cruz disputed that characterization, saying Sessions could have “been more clear” in his comments, but was speaking in his capacity as a senator during the testimony, not as a surrogate for the Trump campaign.
Sessions himself said he would recuse himself from probes into ties between Russian officials and the Trump campaign if “appropriate.”
Nothing to see here
– The Wall Street Journal, following The Post’s report, added that “U.S. investigators have examined contacts … Sessions had with Russian officials during the time he was advising” Trump’s campaign. “The outcome of the inquiry, and whether it is ongoing, wasn’t clear,” per Carol E. Lee, Christopher S. Stewart, Rob Barry and Shane Harris. “The contacts were being examined as part of a wide-ranging U.S. counterintelligence investigation into possible communications between members of Mr. Trump’s campaign team and Russian operatives.” Three other nuggets:
A spokeswoman told the Journal that the AG wasn’t aware that his communications have been under investigation until being contacted by the press.
The inquiry, focused on contacts Sessions had “while serving as Mr. Trump’s foreign-policy adviser in the spring and summer of 2016,” is being pursued by the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Treasury Department.
“The FBI’s role in the investigation into Mr. Sessions’ conversations left the agency ‘wringing its hands’ about how to proceed, said one person familiar with the matter.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/03/02/daily-202-trump-s-russia-headache-gets-worse-as-sessions-struggles-to-spin-undisclosed-meetings/58b745cae9b69b1406c75d1b/?utm_term=.71bd8d0fe17a&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1
I’d trust Katrina Pierson more than you, Senator Cruz.
Sure, it was a nothingburger. So why lie about it under oath?
Ted Cruz…you know, I’d actually forgotten about him. Talk about a walking nothing-burger.
If that’s the best defense Sessions has, he’s done.
possible perjury and treason are a “nothing burger”. Got it.