In a lengthy interview with the New York Times, President Donald Trump said a lot of very interesting, and sometimes very troubling, things.
President Trump seemed especially preoccupied with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, going so far as to say that if he had known that the Attorney General would recuse himself from the Russia investigation, he would have picked somebody else for the job. I was interested to see that when President Trump talked about the Attorney General’s confirmation hearing, he said that then-Senator Sessions “gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren't.”
The President is referring to when I asked the now Attorney General what he would do if there were evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign.
Mr. Sessions answered—under oath—by saying that he did not communicate with Russians in the course of the campaign, which was a false answer to a question that I didn’t even ask. Because he had, in fact, met at least twice with the Russian ambassador during 2016.
And then in June, the Attorney General made the excuse that my question confused him.
“There is the assertion that I did not answer Senator Franken's question honestly at my confirmation hearing. That is false. This is how it happened. He asked me a rambling question that included dramatic, new allegations…I wanted to refute immediately any suggestion that I was a part of such an activity.”
I said this last month, but it bears repeating: I don’t buy that excuse. If he really wants to clear things up, our Attorney General should come back before the Senate Judiciary Committee to give us those simple—maybe even honest, this time—answers.
But look, here’s the bottom line. Nobody in Trump world, including the President himself, his own son, his top political advisors, and the Attorney General, seem to be the least bit concerned that a hostile foreign power—Russia—sought to undermine our democracy by meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Time and time again, these folks are acting like a group of people with something to hide, and I believe the American people deserve to know why.
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