Russia’s ambassador to Washington was overheard by US spy agencies telling his bosses that he had discussed campaign-related matters — including issues important to Moscow — with Jeff Sessions during last year’s presidential race, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing current and former US officials.
A US official confirmed to reporters that Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions, then a US senator and key foreign policy adviser to then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, were intercepted by US intelligence agencies.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was nothing automatically inappropriate about Sessions discussing policy matters or even Trump’s thinking about them with a foreign diplomat.
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“The question is whether he crossed the line and discussed classified information or talked about deals like lifting sanctions if the Russians were interested in investing in the US or had dirt on [then-Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham] Clinton,” said a second official familiar with the intercepts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “His memory is another matter.”
Sessions at first failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.
As US attorney general, he in March recused himself from matters connected to an investigation by the FBI into Russian meddling in last year’s US election and any connections to the Trump campaign following his admission that he had talked to the Russian envoy.
Sessions has denied discussing campaign issues with Russian officials and has said that he only met Kislyak in his role of US senator.
The Post cited one US official as saying that Sessions provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.”
The newspaper reported that a former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for US-Russia relations in a Trump administration.
The Post cited US Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores as saying: “Obviously I cannot comment on the reliability of what anonymous sources describe in a wholly uncorroborated intelligence intercept that the Washington Post has not seen and that has not been provided to me.”
The Post said that Sessions did not discuss interference in the election.
Trump on Wednesday said in a New York Times interview that he was disappointed by Sessions’ move to recuse himself, but a White House spokeswoman said on Thursday that the president still had confidence in Sessions “or he would not be the attorney general.”
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