After some initial uncertainty over whether Sessions would deliver his testimony in an open or closed session, the Justice Department said Monday that he would testify publicly.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Rosenstein at a budget hearing Tuesday what he would do if Trump ordered him to fire Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the USA elections and possible Russian ties to Trump's campaign. But it's more likely to resemble the public hearing that happened just a day before Comey, where four top intelligence officials were grilled mercilessly, but offered little information.
"It would be premature for me to deny the president a full and intelligent choice about executive privilege", he said.
Spicer, the spokesman, declined to say then that Sessions enjoyed Trump's confidence, though spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later in the week that the president had confidence "in all of his Cabinet".
Comey said Trump "sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk".
But administration officials downplayed those comments and reports that Ruddy recently visited the White House, telling CNN the president did not speak to Ruddy about the possibility of attempting to end Mueller's investigation.
Here's why Sessions is at the center of so much, and here's how he can help us better understand the still-unraveling Trump-Russia-FBI investigation.
With executive privilege in play, lawmakers must be on their game, Michael Moore, a former United States attorney, told CNN's Brooke Baldwin.
The former Federal Bureau of Investigation director said he contacted Sessions after a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office where Sessions and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, were asked to leave and Comey was alone with the president.
If there is no independent account of what might have taken place inside the White House - in the form of a recording system that might have kept "tapes" of the discussions that took place, as Trump once suggested on Twitter - it boils down to Trump's and Sessions' word against Comey's. But Sessions said he had no recollection of that.
"We also were aware of facts that I can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic", Comey said of the attorney general.
British inflation rate rises to 4-year high of 2.9 pct
Under final revision of January data, IIP growth has been revised to 3.01 per cent from 3.8 per cent estimated earlier. The pound stayed higher against the dollar after the inflation data and was up 0.3 percent at $1.2702 as of 9:43 a.m.
Newsmax CEO and Trump friend Chris Ruddy rung the alarms Monday, saying that Trump was seriously considering firing Robert Mueller, who is leading the federal Russian Federation probe.
Sessions in March removed himself from involvement in any probe into alleged Russian election meddling but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose that he met a year ago with Russia's ambassador. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that Trump was getting in the way of his own agenda. "Totally illegal? Very 'cowardly", he tweeted Sunday.
Several Republican lawmakers also criticized Comey for disclosing memos he had written in the aftermath of his private conversations with Trump, calling that action "inappropriate".
In an interview Monday on Fox News' "Fox & Friends", Ivanka Trump says political life still surprises her and that "there is a level of viciousness I was not expecting". Preet Bharara told ABC's "This Week" that Trump was trying to "cultivate some kind of relationship" with him when he called him twice before the inauguration to "shoot the breeze". The committee shortly after said the hearing would be open.
On Comey's accusations that Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation of Flynn, Bharara said "no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction" of justice.
"I think he's considering perhaps terminating the special counsel".
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of OR, also a member of the intelligence panel, sent a letter to panel Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina and Warner asking for the hearing to be open. Charles Schumer of NY, the Senate's top Democrat. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the intelligence committee, referring to the existence of any recordings.
"I wish he would spend his efforts messaging these issues instead of, again, the day-to-day of this investigation", he said.
Those calls have escalated since fired FBI Director James Comey cryptically told lawmakers on Thursday that the bureau had expected Sessions to recuse himself weeks before he did from an investigation into contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian Federation during the 2016 presidential election.
"The peril to Sessions is a great deal more regarding those conversations with the Russians because he made sworn statements on his security clearances that appear to be contradictory to his actual record with contact with Russians", Toobin said. During a congressional hearing, Comey signaled that there were some yet unknown by the public reasons behind Sessions's recusal.
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