US Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify tomorrow before the Senate Intelligence Committee where he will face questions over his meetings with Russian officials during last year's presidential election campaign.
Following fired FBI Director James Comey's testimony last week "it is important that I have the opportunity to address these matters in the appropriate forum", Sessions wrote to Shelby, who chairs the Senate appropriations panel he was scheduled to address.
"These are dark times if the attorney general of the United States is unwilling to answer questions under oath in an open session about his conduct or defend this administration's budget", Schatz said in a statement.
Sessions was scheduled to appear before the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees that day, but said in the letter that some members had publicly stated their intentions to question him about issues related to the Russian Federation investigation.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and another member of the Judiciary Committee, said both Sessions and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch should appear.
In March, Mr. Sessions removed himself from any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the elections, but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose that he met previous year with Russia's ambassador.
He said during his confirmation hearing that he had not met with Russians during the campaign.
Mr Sessions has been dogged by questions about possible additional encounters with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
Sessions' role in the ongoing probe into Trump campaign's alleged communications with Russian Federation has come under increased scrutiny since the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey this week.
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Other US officials have said Qatar has already taken some steps to reduce terror funding but that the steps are insufficient. Trump got defensive when asked about Comey's testimony , accusing him of lying under oath about their interactions.
With reports circulating that Trump had been clashing with his attorney general, and that Sessions had offered to resign, the White House on Tuesday declined to say whether the president maintained confidence in Sessions.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., also a member of that committee, agreed the panel needed to hear any tapes that exist.
The former Federal Bureau of Investigation director also testified that he and the agency had believed Sessions was "inevitably going to recuse" for reasons he said he could not elaborate on.
It was reported in February that, at the request of the White House, Burr spoke to media organizations to downplay the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian officials.
Sessions said Saturday that he was accepting an invitation from the Senate intelligence committee, although that was not immediately confirmed.
When the two men were alone, the ex-FBI director said, Trump urged Comey to stop the investigation into fired national security advisor Michael Flynn. A source close to Sessions has told NBC News he would deny it if he were asked on Tuesday during the planned appropriations committee hearing.
Lawmakers, including Al Franken of Minnesota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, have asked the FBI to investigate and to determine if Sessions committed perjury when he denied having had meetings with Russians.
Two leading Senate Democrats, Dianne Feinstein of California and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, called on Sessions to appear - in public - before the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight responsibility for the Department of Justice.
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