When it was his turn to question Attorney General Jeff Sessions during Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) took a heated approach.
“I believe the American people have had it with stonewalling,” Wyden said forcefully to Sessions. Throughout the hearing, the Attorney General repeatedly blamed his memory and the hypothetical possibility of executive privilege at some point being invoked in response to certain questions. During the exchange with Sen. Wyden, Sessions careened back and forth between the slightly disoriented and giggly persona we got to know so well at his confirmation hearing and sharp, self-righteous anger.
“Mr. Comey said that your continued engagement with the Russia investigation was, quote, ‘problematic,’ and he could not discuss it in public,” Wyden noted.
“Were you aware of any concerns at the FBI or elsewhere in government about your contacts with the Russians, or any other matters relevant to whether you should step aside from the Russia investigation?”
“Senator Wyden, I am not stonewalling,” Sessions replied.
“I am following the historic policies of the Department of Justice. You don’t walk into any hearing or committee meeting and reveal confidential communications with the President of the United States who’s entitled to receive confidential communications and your best judgment about a host of issues, and after be accused of stonewalling, so I would push back on that. Secondly, Mr. Comey, perhaps he didn’t know, but I basically recused myself the first day I got into the office, because I never accessed files, I never learned the names of investigators, I never met with them, I never asked for documentation. The documentation, what little I received, was mostly already in the media, and was presented by the senior ethics professional responsibility attorney in the department. And I made the honest and proper decision to recuse myself, as I told Senator Feinstein and the members of the committee when they confirmed me.”