Jeff Sessions caught lying under oath about multiple contacts with Russian lobbyist
It turns out Jeff Sessions has perjured himself yet again. Earlier this week he publicly testified under oath that, aside from the meetings he originally lied about with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, he’d had no other Russian contacts. In fact Senator John McCain asked Sessions specifically whether he’d met with any Russian lobbyists during the campaign. Sessions said no. Now that’s confirmed to have been a lie.
Richard Burt, a lobbyist for Russian government-controlled businesses, now says that he had multiple meetings with Jeff Sessions during the course of the campaign (link). In fact Burt says he attended multiple dinners at Sessions’ invitation. Burt was a prominent figure in the Donald Trump campaign, making it all but impossible for Sessions to argue that he somehow didn’t know who Burt was, or what he did for a living. Moreover, it appears McCain may have been knowingly setting a perjury trap for Sessions by asking the lobbyist question.
Senator McCain made a point of asking Jeff Sessions this week whether he had met with Russian lobbyists, which seemed like an oddly specific question considering that Russian lobbyists had not played into the Sessions-Russia story up to that point (link). But the Senate Intel Committee held a classified briefing with NSA Director Mike Rogers the night before Jeff Sessions testified in public, and our educated guess is that Rogers may have briefed the committee on Sessions’ Russian lobbyist meetings.
In any case this is just the latest instance in a pattern of Jeff Sessions lying under oath and perjuring himself with regard to his Russian meetings. He lied during his Attorney General confirmation hearings. When caught, he lied again in his amended testimony. He lied on his security clearance form. And now he’s once again lied under oath during this week’s hearings. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is no doubt keeping score.
