Jeff Sessions must resign — immediately

When Jeff Ses­sions was being scru­ti­nized by the Unit­ed States Sen­ate for the vital­ly impor­tant posi­tion of Unit­ed States Attor­ney Gen­er­al, he was asked by Sen­a­tor Al Franken what he would do if “any­one affil­i­at­ed with the Trump cam­paign” was found to have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with offi­cials of the Russ­ian Federation.

Ses­sions answered: “I have been called a sur­ro­gate at a time or two in that cam­paign, and I did not have com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Russians.”

We now know that Ses­sions per­jured him­self. Via The Wash­ing­ton Post:

Then-Sen. Jeff Ses­sions (R‑Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambas­sador to the Unit­ed States, Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials said, encoun­ters he did not dis­close when asked about pos­si­ble con­tacts between mem­bers of Pres­i­dent Trump’s cam­paign and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Moscow dur­ing Sessions’s con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing to become attor­ney general.

One of the meet­ings was a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion between Ses­sions and Russ­ian Ambas­sador Sergey Kislyak that took place in Sep­tem­ber in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cials say was a Russ­ian cyber cam­paign to upend the U.S. pres­i­den­tial race.

The Unit­ed States can­not have an attor­ney gen­er­al who lies under oath to Con­gress. Jeff Ses­sions must resign, imme­di­ate­ly, for the good of the office he holds and the good of the coun­try he pro­fess­es to love.

Top Democ­rats are, thank­ful­ly, call­ing for just that. Nan­cy Pelosi:

Jeff Ses­sions lied under oath dur­ing his con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing before the Sen­ate.  Under penal­ty of per­jury, he told the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, ‘I have been called a sur­ro­gate at a time or two in that cam­paign and I did not have com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Rus­sians.’ We now know that state­ment is false.

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ses­sions has nev­er had the cred­i­bil­i­ty to over­see the FBI inves­ti­ga­tion of senior Trump offi­cials’ ties to the Rus­sians. That is why Democ­rats have con­sis­tent­ly called for Ses­sions to recuse him­self from any over­sight of the investigation.

Now, after lying under oath to Con­gress about his own com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Rus­sians, the Attor­ney Gen­er­al must resign. Ses­sions is not fit to serve as the top law enforce­ment offi­cer of our coun­try and must resign. There must be an inde­pen­dent, bipar­ti­san, out­side com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the Trump polit­i­cal, per­son­al and finan­cial con­nec­tions to the Russians.

Eliz­a­beth War­ren:

It’s a sim­ple q: “Have you been in con­tact with any­one con­nect­ed to any part of the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment about the 2016 election?”

Jeff Ses­sions answered “No.” Turns out he met with the Russ­ian Ambas­sador. Two months before the election.

Now Jeff Ses­sions is AG – the final say on the law enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tion into ties between the Trump cam­paign & Russia?

What a farce.

This is not nor­mal. This is not fake news. This is a very real & seri­ous threat to the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Unit­ed States.

We need a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor total­ly inde­pen­dent of the AG. We need a real, bipar­ti­san, trans­par­ent Con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion into Russia.

And we need Attor­ney Gen­er­al Jeff Ses­sions – who should have nev­er been con­firmed in the first place – to resign. We need it now.

Eli­jah Cum­mings:

It is incon­ceiv­able that even after Michael Fly­nn was fired for con­ceal­ing his con­ver­sa­tions with the Rus­sians that Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ses­sions would keep his own con­ver­sa­tions secret for sev­er­al more weeks. When Sen­a­tor Ses­sions tes­ti­fied under oath that ‘I did not have com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Rus­sians,’ his state­ment was demon­stra­bly false, yet he let it stand for weeks — and he con­tin­ued to let it stand even as he watched the Pres­i­dent tell the entire nation he did­n’t know any­thing about any­one advis­ing his cam­paign talk­ing to the Rus­sians. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ses­sions should resign imme­di­ate­ly, and there is no longer any ques­tion that we need a tru­ly inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate this issue.

We agree. Jeff Ses­sions must resign imme­di­ate­ly. And if he refus­es to resign, Con­gress should remove him through impeach­ment.