Your feedback ensures we stay focused on the facts that matter to you most—take our survey
You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - June 14, 2017
Trump Administration (first term)  Vice President Mike Pence Cabinet • White House staff • Transition team • Trump's second term |
Domestic affairs: Abortion • Crime and justice • Education • Energy and the environment • Federal courts • Firearms policy • First Amendment • Healthcare • Immigration • Infrastructure • LGBTQ issues • Marijuana • Puerto Rico • Social welfare programs • Veterans • Voting issues Economic affairs and regulations: Agriculture and food policy • Budget • Financial regulation • Jobs • Social Security • Taxes • Trade Foreign affairs and national security: Afghanistan • Arab states of the Persian Gulf • China • Cuba • Iran • Iran nuclear deal • Islamic State and terrorism • Israel and Palestine • Latin America • Military • NATO • North Korea • Puerto Rico • Russia • Syria • Syrian refugees • Technology, privacy, and cybersecurity |
| Polling indexes: Opinion polling during the Trump administration |
This is the June 7, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, where he rejected the allegation that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian officials to influence the election’s outcome.
Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chair of the committee, identified four questions he wanted addressed during the day’s hearing:
- Did Sessions have any meetings with Russian officials on behalf of the Trump campaign or as attorney general?
- What role did Sessions play on Trump’s foreign policy team?
- Why did Sessions recuse himself from the investigation into Russia?
- What role did Sessions play in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey?
We will examine the context for these questions and the highlights of Sessions’ testimony.
Meetings between Sessions and Russian officials
On his security clearance form and in his confirmation hearing testimony in January, Sessions did not disclose that he met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice in 2016. A spokesman for Sessions said that he was advised not to list such meetings with foreign dignitaries if they were related his role as a senator. During yesterday’s Senate hearing, Sessions was asked about these interactions and a report that he had met with Kislyak again in April.
- On whether he discussed the election with Russian officials: “Let me state this clearly, colleagues. I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign.”
- On why he did not disclose the meetings during his confirmation hearing: “I was responding to the allegation that surrogates had been meeting with Russians on a regular basis. It simply did not occur to me to go further than the context and to list any conversations that I may have had with Russians in routine situations as I had many routine meetings with other foreign officials.”
- On his meetings with Kislyak in 2016: “It was only in March, after my confirmation hearing, that a reporter asked my spokesperson whether I had ever met with any Russian officials. This was a first time that question had squarely been posed to me. On the same day, we provided that reporter with the information related to the meeting that I and my staff held in my Senate office with Ambassador Kislyak as well as the brief encounter in July after a speech that I had given during the convention in Cleveland, Ohio. I also provided the reporter with a list of 25 foreign ambassador meetings that I had had during 2016. In addition, I provided supplemental testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain this event. So I readily acknowledged these two meetings and certainly not one thing happened that was improper in any one of those meetings.”
- On a reported meeting with Kislyak at the Mayflower Hotel in April 2017: “Let me address issues directly. I did not have any private meetings, nor do I recall any conversations, with any Russian officials at the Mayflower hotel. … I would have gladly have reported the meeting and encounter that may have occurred and some say occurred in the Mayflower if I had remembered it or if it actually occurred, which I don't remember that it did.”
The Trump campaign and alleged collusion
During the 2016 presidential election, Sessions led Trump’s foreign policy advisory team. He was asked about the Trump campaign and possible communications with staffers and Russian officials.
- On whether he was involved with the decision to change language in the Republican Party platform regarding providing defensive weapons to Ukraine: “I was not active in the platform committee and did not participate in that, and I don't think I had direct involvement.”
- On the advisory team: “We met a couple of times. Maybe a couple of people did. We never functioned as a coherent team.”
- On whether he would say that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and any foreign government: “I can say that absolutely and have no hesitation to do so. … This is a serious matter. You are talking about hacking into a private person or DNC computer and obtaining information and spreading that out. That's not right. It's likely that laws were violated if laws occurred. It's an improper thing.”
Sessions’ recusal from Russia investigation
On March 2, Sessions announced his recusal from the investigation into Russian active measures during the 2016 presidential election. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Sessions consulted with ethics officials shortly after he was sworn in on whether 28 CFR 45.2, a regulation prohibiting DOJ attorneys from participating in investigations that involved or could involve individuals with whom the attorney had a relationship, applied to his work on the Trump campaign.
- On his decision to recuse himself: “On the date of my formal recusal, my chief of staff sent an e-mail to the heads of relevant departments including by name to director Comey of the FBI to instruct them to inform their staffs of this recusal and advise them not to brief me or involve me in any way in any such matters. In fact they have not. Importantly I recuse myself not because of any asserted wrongdoing or any that I may have been involved in any wrongdoing in the campaign, but because a Department of Justice regulation.”
- On his lack of knowledge of the Russia investigation: “From that point, February 10th until I announced my formal recusal on March 2nd, I was never briefed on any investigative details, did not access any information about the investigation. I received only the limited information that the department's career officials determined was necessary for me to form and make a recusal decision. As such, I have no knowledge about this investigation as it is ongoing today beyond what has been reported.”
The firing of former FBI Director James Comey
On May 9, Trump fired Comey upon the recommendation of Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who asserted that Comey mishandled public disclosures relating to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server use as secretary of state.
In his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, Comey said that he thought he was fired because Trump wanted to change the course of the Russia investigation. Comey said, "There’s no doubt that it’s a fair judgment—it’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired, in some way, to change—or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.”
Comey also expressed disease with conversations he had with Trump regarding the continuing investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, which included a review of Fynn’s interactions with Russian officials.
- On his involvement in the firing of James Comey: “[28 CFR 45.2 states] that department employees should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they served as a campaign adviser. So the scope of my recusal however does not and cannot interfere with my ability to oversee the Department of Justice, including the FBI which has an $8 billion budget and 35,000 employees. I presented to the president my concerns and those of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the ongoing leadership issues at the FBI as stated in my letter recommending the removal of Mr. Comey along with the Deputy Attorney General's memorandum on that issue, which have been released by the White House. Those represent a clear statement of my views. I adopted Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein's points he made in his memorandum and made my recommendation. It is absurd, frankly, to suggest that a recusal from a single specific investigation would render the attorney general unable to manage the leadership of the various department of justice law enforcement components that conduct thousands of investigations.”
- On Comey telling Sessions that he was concerned with his communications with Trump: "[Comey] expressed concern about [a private conversation with Trump]. I agreed with him essentially that there are rules on private conversations with the president. It is not a prohibition on a private discussion with the president as I believe he acknowledged six or more himself with President Obama and President Trump. I didn't feel like—he gave me no detail about what it was that he was concerned about. I didn't say I wouldn't be able to respond if he called me. He certainly knew with regard that he could call his direct supervisor which in the Department of Justice, a supervisor to the FBI, the deputy attorney general could have complained any time if he felt pressured, but I had no doubt he would not yield to any pressure."
- On declining to discuss any conversations he had with Trump regarding Comey during the hearing: "It's a long standing policy. The Department of Justice not to comment on conversations that the attorney general had with the president of the United States for confidential reasons that rounded in the coequal branch. I'm not claiming executive privilege because that's the president's power and I have no power there. … Senator, I'm protecting the president's constitutional right by not giving it away before he has a chance to review it.”
What comes next
The Senate Intelligence Committee does not have any additional public hearings scheduled on this matter. The committee leadership met for the first time with Russia special prosecutor Robert Mueller to discuss how and when their concurrent investigations will share information today.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
| |||||||||||||||||||
