US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has confirmed that he will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week to testify over his dealings with Russian officials, the media reported.
Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Sessions said that he had been scheduled to discuss the Justice Department budget before House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees but that it had become clear some members would focus their questions on the Russian Federation investigation. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies, and Rep. John Abney Culberson (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies.
Sessions said in a letter on Saturday that he will appear before the committee to address matters that former Comey brought up last week in dramatic testimony to the same panel. Comey also testified that he wrote memos detailing that meeting and others with Trump because he was concerned that the president "might lie about the nature of our meeting", he told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
The attorney general cited his involvement in Trump's campaign for stepping away from the Russian Federation investigation in March.
In a closed session afterward, Comey said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had received unconfirmed reports that Sessions might have had a third meeting with Ambassador Sergey Kisylak during a reception for then-candidate Donald Trump at Washington's Mayflower Hotel.
Asked Monday if the White House thought Sessions should invoke executive privilege to avoid answering questions about his conversations with Trump, presidential spokesman Sean Spicer replied, "It depends on the scope of the questions".
Comey told the panel that on Feb 14, the president had made private comments to Comey in the Oval Office that he interpreted as an improper order to drop a criminal investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser.
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Jeff Sessions, a longtime senator until President Donald Trump picked him as United States attorney general, heads to Congress this coming week when he will face a grilling about his Russian interactions.
Sessions wrote that "it is important that I have an opportunity to address these matters in the appropriate forum".
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will replace Sessions at the appropriations committees' hearing Tuesday.
In January, Sessions was still a senator from the state of Alabama when he appeared at a hearing before his confirmation as attorney general.
CNN later reported that congressional investigators have been probing whether Sessions had a possible third, undisclosed meeting with Kislyak.
Fellow Republicans pressed President Donald Trump on Sunday to come clean about whether he has tapes of private conversations with former FBI Director James Comey and provide them to Congress if he does - or possibly face a subpoena, as a Senate investigation into collusion with Russian Federation or obstruction of justice extended to a Trump Cabinet member.
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