Sessions: 'I've Always Told the Truth'
It was three hours into his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that the questions finally seemed to get to Jeff Sessions. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, was pressing the attorney general on discrepancies between his past testimony about Trump campaign contacts with Russia and his current story. Jeffries asked Sessions about his frequent statements that he could not recall certain things, his vote to remove former President Bill Clinton from office for perjury, and an assertion in 2016 that falsely claiming not to recall something constituted perjury.
“Nobody, not you or anyone else, not me, should be accused of perjury for answering the question the way I did in this hearing,” an indignant Sessions said. “I’ve always tried to answer the questions fairly and accurately.”
Judgments on that assertion differ widely, largely following party lines, as the hearing demonstrated. Although he received a few softballs from committee members, Sessions was mostly subjected to a barrage of questions: from Democrats questioning his honesty in describing Trump campaign contacts with Russia; from Republicans who want to see a special-counsel investigation into Hillary Clinton; from African American”; and from Republicans at odds with the Trump administration over renewing NSA warrantless-wiretapping provisions.
