But if questions coming into Tuesday's hearing were, "How would Sessions respond to fired FBI Director James Comey's intimation that there was something else - something classified - about Sessions to be concerned about?" or "What more do we know about President Trump's role in firing Comey or putting pressure on officials to drop the Russian Federation investigation?" there wasn't much light shed on them. The Washington Post recently reported that as his relationship with Trump grew tense in recent months, Sessions offered to resign.
A spokesman for Mueller's team declined to comment on Wednesday.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told NPR's Phil Ewing, "NSA will fully cooperate with the special counsel".
He disputed that his involvement in Comey's firing violated the recusal.
Comey was overseeing thousands of investigations at the time of his firing, Sessions argued, so the fact that he was recused from just one of them shouldn't mean he couldn't make a judgment call on Comey's leadership abilities. And leading Republican legislators on Tuesday waved off the idea of firing Mueller, with House Speaker Paul Ryan saying that his advice was to "let Robert Mueller do his job" and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voicing confidence in the special counsel. Despite voters in the Politico poll indicating by a two-to-one margin that Comey's statements have hurt the president, Trump has maintained that he feels vindicated by the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director's testimony.
The news, if true, would mark a significant turning point as up until now Trump hasn't directly been suspected of major wrongdoing - the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating the Republican president's campaign machinery for possible collusion with Russian Federation.
The poll began the day before Comey testified publicly before the Senate intelligence committee and continued through Sunday.
Scalise Remains In Critical Condition After Baseball Practice Shooting
The gunman identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as James T Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old, was shot at by the police. President Trump on Wednesday night visited Scalise and his family at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington , D.C.
On the one hand, Sessions didn't feel like he needed to stay in the Oval Office on February 14 when President Trump said he wanted to speak privately with Comey.
Sessions repeatedly refused to discuss private conversations with Trump on a wide variety of topics.
Yesterday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to clean up after former FBI Director James Comey vengefully detonated some innuendo bombs during his own appearance before the committee the previous week. He also said he had no access to nor did he seek out any information about the investigation before he formally announced he would recuse himself.
The report stated that Trump was angered when he learned of the relationship and made plans to dump Mueller before being convinced it would be a disastrous move. After a day of speculation, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "While the president has the right to, he has no intention to do so".
Goldsmith takes heart that if this "crazy scenario" ever happened, "Congress would rise up quickly to stop the president" and noted: "If I am naive in thinking this, then we are indeed in trouble". "Americans don't want to hear that answers to relevant questions are privileged or off limits", Wyden said. He described Mueller as operating independently from the Justice Department in his investigation.
Despite testy exchanges with Senator Kamala Harris and others, including a warning by Heinrich that Sessions was "impeding" the congressional probe by refusing to answer basic questions, Goodman said the attorney general was at no actual risk of being held in contempt of Congress by obstructing the delegation. At the end of May, the chief of the Justice Department's Fraud Section, Andrew Weissman, also joined the team, NPR's Carrie Johnson reported at the time. Justice Department regulations specify that a special counsel can only be removed for "misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause", and that the "specific reason" must be spelled out in writing. Any findings by the department's investigation would be referred to Congress, where lawmakers would determine whether to impeach the president.
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