[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 185 (Monday, November 13, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7171-S7174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Russia Investigation

  Madam President, over the past 10 months, the Attorney General has 
testified before the Senate on three occasions about his knowledge of 
and contacts with Russian operatives. He also answered written 
questions and provided additional supplemental testimony, but he still 
has not gotten his story straight. On numerous occasions, new 
disclosures of his communications involving Russia have raised serious 
doubts about his testimony, and not one of these disclosures has come 
from the Attorney General; all have come from the press or unsealed 
court records. That is a problem.
  This started in January. At his nomination hearing, both Senator 
Franken and I asked him about contacts with Russian officials. I asked 
him in writing whether he had been in contact with anyone connected to 
the Russian Government about the 2016 election. It was not a tricky or 
surprising question. Other Trump officials' undisclosed contacts with 
Russians, like those of Michael Flynn or Jared Kushner, were major 
headlines at the time. Under oath, then-Senator Sessions answered with 
a single word, ``no.'' We soon learned that the answer was ``yes''--
just the opposite.
  In March, the Washington Post reported that Sessions met with Russian 
Ambassador Kislyak on two occasions during the height of the 2016 
campaign. Days later, the Attorney General was forced to recuse himself 
from the Russia investigation. In June, the press reported on a third 
undisclosed contact. In July, despite the Attorney General's previous 
assertions that he never discussed the campaign with Russian officials, 
U.S. intelligence intercepts reportedly revealed that he had done just 
that--discussing the campaign and its positions on Russia-related 
issues with the Russian Ambassador. When I asked the Attorney General 
about this report in the Judiciary Committee last month, his testimony 
shifted yet again; he acknowledged that it was ``possible'' he had 
those conversations. That flatly contradicts his testimony to me in 
January.
  The disclosures show no sign of stopping. Two weeks ago, unsealed 
court records revealed additional Russian connections that were 
discussed during a Trump campaign meeting in March 2016. Then-Senator 
Sessions reportedly admonished those in attendance to not discuss the 
issue again out of fear it

[[Page S7172]]

would leak to the press. Just last week, another foreign policy 
campaign aide testified that he informed Sessions of his planned trip 
to Russia in July 2016. Once again, the descriptions of these 
communications are impossible to reconcile with the Attorney General's 
testimony, in which he claimed under oath that he was not aware of any 
contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
  The notion that the Attorney General is just forgetful is simply not 
believable. Potential Russian involvement in our elections was a major 
story at the time. In July 2016, then-candidate Trump encouraged Russia 
to commit espionage against his political opponent, Hillary Clinton, by 
stealing her emails. That same week then-Senator Sessions told CNN that 
``people come up to [him] all the time'' to talk about Russia hacking 
Hillary Clinton's emails. Exactly who were all these people talking to 
him about Russia hacking Hillary Clinton's emails? And should he have 
disclosed any of these conversations to the Judiciary Committee? We do 
not yet know. Senator Durbin recently asked him this in a written 
question, and we look forward to his response.
  I want another point to be clear: I have never accused the Attorney 
General of colluding with Russia, and I am not doing so now. But it is 
clear that the Kremlin tested the waters with then-Senator Sessions, as 
it did with so many other Trump campaign officials. It is equally clear 
that the Attorney General concealed his own contacts with Russian 
officials, and he has failed to correct the record even when given 
multiple opportunities to do so. I agree with Senators Graham, Franken, 
and others that he needs to come back once again to testify before the 
Senate Judiciary Committee. It is time we hear the whole story.
  An important part of that story is what the Attorney General did on 
May 9, the day President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. To 
justify the dismissal, the President cited a Justice Department 
memorandum signed off by Attorney General Sessions. The memo attempted 
to justify firing Director Comey because he treated Hillary Clinton 
unfairly during the email investigation. We later learned there was an 
earlier, unsent letter that pointed to President Trump's true 
motivation for firing Director Comey: the Russia investigation. The day 
before the dismissal, the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General 
were reportedly called into the White House to discuss the earlier 
letter. The next day, May 9, they delivered their own hastily drafted 
memo that provided the alternative justification for firing Director 
Comey.
  Here is the problem: The May 9 memo was a facade. It was a pretext. 
The White House needed to point to anything other than Russia to 
justify dismissing Director Comey, and the Attorney General obliged, 
but the President could not keep the secret. The very next morning, he 
boasted to Russian officials visiting the Oval Office that firing 
Director Comey took great pressure off of him from the Russia 
investigation. Two days later, on national television, the President 
made clear what we all knew: He fired the lead Russia investigator due 
to concerns over how he was handling the Russia investigation.
  Here is another problem: Firing an investigator in order to stymie a 
legitimate investigation is a crime--it is called obstruction of 
justice. Whether there is sufficient evidence to merit a charge of 
obstruction against the President will likely be revealed by Special 
Counsel Mueller. If so, the Attorney General may have to admit the May 
9 memo that he approved was nothing but a smokescreen--an attempt to 
mask an uncomfortable truth and excuse the inexcusable. Prosecutors do 
not look kindly upon those who aid others in covering up crimes.
  For many years, I sat with Senator Sessions on the Judiciary 
Committee. We disagreed on many policy issues, but I never questioned 
his commitment to the rule of law. I do question this President's 
commitment to the rule of law. This month alone, President Trump 
repeatedly directed the Justice Department to target his political 
opponents and chase his conspiracy theories. This is a President who 
needs to be told ``no.'' May 9 was one of those moments. I am greatly 
disappointed that Attorney General Sessions was not up to the task. 
This is a solemn obligation that goes to the heart of what it means to 
be Attorney General: ensuring that no person, not even a President, is 
above the law. He is not a ``Secretary of Justice,'' serving the 
President blindly and covering his flaws. He is the Attorney General of 
the United States, serving the American people. I fear Attorney General 
Sessions has lost sight of this distinction.
  We are in the midst of perhaps the most serious national security 
investigation of our time. A foreign adversary attacked our democracy 
and our elections. We know that Russia will be back. If we are serious 
about preventing the next attack, we must know what happened during the 
last. The American people deserve answers--no more obfuscation, no more 
falsehoods. This starts with the Attorney General returning to the 
Senate Judiciary Committee to explain, in person, under oath, why he 
has not provided truthful, complete answers to some of the most 
pressing questions facing our Nation today.
  Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Minnesota, a Senator who 
has been relentless in asking these questions. I ask unanimous consent 
that he be given such time as he needs.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I thank Senator Leahy, my good friend.
  New developments in the ongoing investigation into Russian 
interference in the election have, once again, raised concerns about 
the accuracy of statements made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions 
during his appearance before the Senate. In light of the Attorney 
General's failure to tell the truth about not just his own interactions 
with Russian operatives, but also the extent to which he knew about 
Russian contacts by other members of the Trump campaign team, I call 
upon Attorney General Sessions to return to the Senate Judiciary 
Committee and provide us with a complete and accurate accounting of the 
facts.
  There is no question that Russia--a hostile foreign power--meddled in 
our election. Russia carried out this attack in order to undermine 
confidence in American democracy, to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign 
for President, and to help Donald Trump. Our intelligence agencies have 
confirmed this to be true. But in order to keep our country safe and 
prevent an attack like this from happening again, the American people 
need to understand what happened, including whether members of the 
Trump campaign either participated in the Russian operation or turned a 
blind eye to it. We need to get to the bottom of this, and to do that, 
we need to know the truth.
  Regrettably, Attorney General Sessions, our Nation's chief law 
enforcement officer, seems to have a real problem telling the truth 
about both his own interactions with Russians and those of the larger 
Trump campaign team. At his confirmation hearing in January, when I 
referenced a breaking report from CNN that there had been a 
``continuing exchange of information during the campaign between 
Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government,'' I 
asked him, ``If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the 
Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course 
of this campaign, what will you do?'' This was a simple, 
straightforward question: ``What will you do?'' The implication was, 
would you recuse yourself? But rather than answer that question, then-
Senator Sessions said: ``I didn't have--did not have communications 
with the Russians.'' That, of course, was not true. It was later 
revealed that Attorney General Sessions had met with the Russian 
Ambassador at least three times during the campaign. Only after two of 
those meetings were uncovered and disclosed--7 weeks later--did 
Attorney General Sessions announce his recusal from the Russia 
investigation.
  After he was confronted with the truth, the Attorney General began to 
subtly change his story. His first answer, under oath before the 
Judiciary Committee in January, was that he ``did not have 
communications with the Russians.'' But after his meetings with the 
Russian Ambassador were exposed, Attorney General Sessions began to 
qualify his explanations. In a

[[Page S7173]]

statement issued on March 2, the day after his Russian contacts were 
revealed, he said: ``I never met with any Russian officials to discuss 
issues of the campaign.'' But in July, the Washington Post published a 
report suggesting that the Attorney General did discuss campaign issues 
with the Russian Ambassador. According to the report, American 
intelligence agencies intercepted communications between the Russian 
Ambassador and the Kremlin in which the Ambassador described his 
conversations with then-Senator Sessions. The two men reportedly talked 
about substantive policy matters, including campaign-related issues.
  In response to this report, the Justice Department issued a statement 
stating that Attorney General Sessions stood by his testimony and again 
claimed that the Attorney General did not discuss ``interference with 
any campaign or election.''
  Each and every time new information comes to light about the Attorney 
General's contacts with the Russians, he has responded not by coming 
clean and admitting that his initial testimony was inaccurate but by 
shifting his story and moving the goalposts. The truth has a nasty 
habit of catching up with Attorney General Sessions.
  Recently, unsealed court documents revealed that in early October, 
former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pled 
guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian 
operatives during the campaign. The unsealed documents also revealed 
that Mr. Papadopoulos didn't just meet with Russian operatives during 
the campaign, he did so with the express goal of facilitating meetings 
between the Russian Government and other Trump campaign officials, 
including the candidate himself, Donald Trump. According to the court 
documents, Mr. Papadopoulos made no secret of his Russian contacts. He 
described his Russian meetings in emails to senior campaign officials, 
and according to Mr. Papadopoulos, he discussed his Russian contacts 
with then-Senator Sessions directly.
  On March 31, 2016, Mr. Papadopoulos attended a meeting of the Trump 
campaign's National Security Advisory Committee--a group led by 
Attorney General Sessions, who chaired the committee and advised the 
candidate on foreign policy and national security matters. The court 
documents revealed that after Mr. Papadopoulos introduced himself to 
the group, he ``stated, in sum and substance, that he had connections 
that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and 
President Putin.'' Mr. Papadopoulos made that pitch while seated two 
seats to the left of Attorney General Sessions. We know that for a fact 
because then-Candidate Trump posted a photo of the meeting on 
Instagram. There is then-Senator Sessions, there is George 
Papadopoulos, and there is then-Candidate Donald Trump.
  After the court documents were unsealed, reports about what happened 
at the March 31 meeting began to emerge. Reportedly, Mr. Papadopoulos 
spoke about facilitating a meeting between the candidate and the 
Russian President for a few minutes. Then-Candidate Trump reportedly 
``listened with interest and asked questions of Mr. Papadopoulos.'' But 
according to an adviser present at the meeting, then-Senator Sessions 
reacted negatively to Mr. Papadopoulos's idea and reportedly ``shut 
[Papadopoulos] down.'' Attorney General Sessions is reported to have 
said: ``We're not going to do it'' and ``I'd prefer that nobody speak 
about this again.'' If those reports are accurate, they would signal 
that then-Senator Sessions reacted quite strongly to the suggestion 
that then-Candidate Trump should meet with President Putin. Such a 
strong reaction suggests that Attorney General Sessions would have 
remembered a conversation like that.
  Mr. Papadopoulos wasn't the only member of the campaign to tell 
Attorney General Sessions about his Russian contacts. Earlier this 
month, Carter Page--yet another former Trump campaign foreign policy 
adviser who is under scrutiny for his Russian contacts--testified to 
the House Intelligence Committee that he told then-Senator Sessions 
about a trip to Russia that Page was going to take in July 2016, where 
he met with Russian officials and state-owned businesses.
  Nonetheless, time and time again, Attorney General Sessions has 
claimed under oath that he was unaware of any communications between 
Russians and members of the Trump campaign.
  During his confirmation hearing in January, when I mentioned reports 
that there was a ``continuing exchange of information during the 
campaign between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries of the Russian 
government,'' the Attorney General said that he was ``not aware of any 
of those activities.''
  My good friend Senator Pat Leahy asked him in writing whether he had 
``been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian 
government about the 2016 election.'' The Attorney General answered, 
simply, ``No.''
  In June, Attorney General Sessions appeared before the Senate 
Intelligence Committee. In his opening statement, he said: ``I have 
never met with or had any conversations 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.''
  Senator Risch asked him: ``Did you hear even a whisper, or a 
suggestion, or anyone making reference within that campaign that 
somehow the Russians were involved in that campaign?'' Attorney General 
Sessions replied: ``I did not.''
  Senator Joe Manchin asked him: ``Are there any other meetings between 
Russian government officials and any other Trump campaign associates 
that have not been previously disclosed that you know of?'' Attorney 
General Sessions said that he did not recall any such meetings.
  Senator Kamala Harris asked him: ``Are you aware of any 
communications with other Trump campaign officials and associates that 
they had with Russian officials or any Russian nationals?'' Attorney 
General Sessions replied: ``I don't recall that.''
  Just last month, during the Attorney General's most recent appearance 
before the Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham asked him: ``Did 
anybody in the campaign--did you ever overhear a conversation between 
you and anybody on the campaign who talked about meeting with the 
Russians?'' This time, Attorney General Sessions replied quite 
carefully. He said: ``I have not seen anything that would indicate 
collusion with Russians to impact the campaign.''
  But when I asked him to clarify his shifting explanations for his own 
interactions with the Russian Ambassador, Attorney General Sessions 
said that when he first heard about reports of a ``continuing exchange 
of information'' between Russians and the Trump campaign, that he was 
``taken aback by this dramatic statement that I'd never heard before 
and knew nothing about.'' He said that ``a continuing exchange of 
information between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the 
Russian government . . . did not happen, at least not to my knowledge, 
and not with me.''

  Describing his January testimony, he said:

       [A]nd I said, I'm not aware of those activities. And I 
     wasn't, and am not. I don't believe they occurred.

  Setting aside the convenient amnesia that Attorney General Sessions 
seems to experience when asked about his own interactions with Russians 
or those he witnessed, I find it disturbing that he went so far as to 
claim, as recently as October of this year, that he didn't believe that 
any meetings between Trump associates and Russians ever occurred.
  Just think about the Trump campaign members we know to have met with 
Russians from publicly available information: Carter Page, former 
campaign adviser; Paul Manafort, former campaign manager and chief 
strategist; Michael Flynn, the disgraced former National Security 
Advisor, who in 2015 spoke at a party honoring Russia's state-owned 
television network, where he sat next to Vladimir Putin; Jared Kushner, 
White House senior adviser and son-in-law; and Donald Trump, Jr., the 
President's son. Each and every one of these former members of the 
Trump campaign have had unusual contacts with the Russians.
  Nonetheless, just last month the Attorney General said:

       I'm not aware of those activities. And I wasn't, and am 
     not. I don't believe they occurred.


[[Page S7174]]


  I wanted to say to Attorney General Sessions: Listen, I understand 
that you are recused from the Russia investigation, but do you think 
that means you are not allowed to watch the news or read a newspaper? 
My God, what is going on here?
  It is clear that Attorney General Sessions has an ongoing difficulty 
remembering his own interactions with Russians and the extent to which 
he knew about Russian contacts with other members of the Trump 
campaign. As the record demonstrates, Attorney General Sessions has 
misrepresented the truth about those contacts to Members of this body 
time and time again. The interference by a hostile power in our 
Nation's elections represents an attack on democracy itself, and the 
inability of our Nation's top law enforcement official to speak with a 
clear and consistent voice about what he knows of the Russian operation 
is disturbing.
  Tomorrow morning, the Attorney General will appear before the House 
Judiciary Committee, where I am confident he will once again face 
questions about this issue. It is my hope that this time Attorney 
General Sessions will answer those questions honestly, but in light of 
his misrepresentations to Members of this body, Attorney General 
Sessions has an obligation to return to the Senate and explain himself.
  Getting to the bottom of Russia's interference in the 2016 election 
is a matter of national security, and Attorney General Sessions owes 
the American people an explanation about what he knows. He needs to 
return to the Senate Judiciary Committee to set the record straight.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.