I remember how hopeful I was when Jeff Sessions was chosen to be President Trump’s Attorney General. I also remember how disappointed I was when he recused himself from the Russian collusion probes. Well, we now might have the answer as to why that happened.
On Monday, Just The News reported:
The FBI opened a probe into sitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May 2017 for potentially making false statements to Congress about Russian contacts even though he had already updated the disputed testimony, newly declassified documents show.
The evidence to support the probe — codenamed MARCH TOLL and opened one day after FBI Director James Comey was fired by President Donald Trump — was a weeks-old letter from Democrats and an article from a liberal news site, the memos show.
The bureau’s investigative files into the Sessions matter were declassified by President Donald Trump and made public Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.
The investigation was predicated on evidence contained in a March 20, 2017, letter to Comey from two Democrat senators on the Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Al Franken of Minnesota.
The senators argued that Sessions made false statements in his confirmation hearing earlier that year when he testified about communications with members of the Russian government.
A Trump administration official told reporters the timing of the investigation raises concerns because it was opened right after Comey’s firing and more than a month and a half after the Democratic senators wrote to the FBI.
The article notes:
Sessions sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6 to supplement his prior testimony, confirming that he did, in fact, meet with the Russian ambassador twice during the campaign season, but that his answer, “I didn’t have–did not have communications with the Russians […]” was truthful because Franken asked about a “continuing exchange of information during the campaign” between agents of the campaign and the Russian government.
“I did not mention communications I had had with the Russian Ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them,” Sessions wrote in the letter.
…However, the FBI did not act on the letter until the day after President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, citing a Justice Department belief that Comey mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The department’s own independent Inspector General would later conclude that Comey “violated long-standing department practice and protocol” with his conduct in the Clinton case.
The FBI’s opening memo shows that the investigation into Sessions was first opened at the FBI’s Washington Field Office at the direction of headquarters solely predicated on the March 20 letter from Sens. Leahy and Franken. The file also noted that Comey notified then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on April 28 that the case would be opened.
Please follow the link to read the entire article. I believe this explains a lot about the behavior of Jeff Sessions. It also may explain how the Democrats have turned so many of the Republicans in Congress into spineless weenies. If someone threatens you with being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), you tend to do what they request.