11 Senators Just Demanded Jeff Sessions Be Investigated For Comey Firing
A public interest group has joined with 11 U.S. Senators to ask for an investigation into Attorney General Jeff Sessions role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey, after he had recused himself from anything having to do with the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The public interest group Democracy 21, joined with Democratic Senators including Martin Heinrch (N.M.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass), Tom Udall (N.M.), Patty Murray (Wash) and Richard Blumenthal (Ct) to ask the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to look into whether Sessions violated ethics rules.
My letter with @SenWarren demanding investigation into Attorney General Sessions’ involvement in firing FBI Director Comey. #TrumpRussia pic.twitter.com/br33ID9v0d
— Martin Heinrich (@MartinHeinrich) May 17, 2017
Sessions actually recused himself twice. First, at his confirmation hearing and again in March after testifying before Congress about his role in the Trump campaign.
“Despite this recusal,” the letter says, “Attorney General Sessions appears to have been intimately involved with the May 9, 2017, dismissal of [FBI] Director James Comey, who was in charge of an investigation of the Trump campaign and its ties to Russia.”
The letter is the latest to be sent by the Democratic lawmakers seeking to hold the Trump administration accountable for a series of scandals, mistakes, and misinformation surrounding the Russia probe.
Earlier this week the same group of Democrats expressed outrage over Trump sharing classified information with Russians, as well as their praise for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump and Russia.
In the letter about Sessions, the Senators said they were asking for this investigation because “It is imperative that the American people have faith in the institutions that are investigating the influence of a hostile foreign power may have had on our presidential campaign, election, and the current administration of President Trump.”
“We believe the Attorney General’s involvement in the termination of Director Comey,” adds the letter, “has injected the exact ‘partiality’ in these investigations he claimed to wish to avoid.”
Democracy 21 also asked that all necessary steps be taken to “ensure that the Attorney General withdraws from any participation in the selection of an interim or permanent Director of the FBI.”
While the Democrats have a limited Congressional authority to subpoena witnesses and information because the Republicans have the majority in both houses of Congress, these Senators are using their position as a bully pulpit to make clear that improper activity, broken laws, and unethical behavior must be exposed.
