Sessions to Testify to Senate Intelligence Committee

Today, starting at 2:30 PM EDT, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will publicly testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of their ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump's attempts to disrupt investigation thereof.

If you are in search of online streaming, here is the C-SPAN link where his testimony will be broadcast.

As I noted yesterday, Sessions almost certainly requested the open session "as an excuse to not have to answer the committee's questions, and you bet your ass that the committee members know that, and the Republican majority is going along with it anyway. Because it's another opportunity for them to run interference for Trump, while pretending like they are interested in holding him accountable."

And sure enough: "Jeff Sessions does not plan to reveal information about his private conversations with [Donald] Trump during his testimony...according to sources close to the Attorney General. The sources said the former senator and Trump loyalist is unlikely to talk about any direct conversations with the president."

There is, however, still an awful lot the committee can ask him, and should ask him, and that he would presumably be able to answer without disclosing any conversations with the president.

For example: Sessions should be asked, and should be able to answer, whether he did indeed have a third undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak—and, if so, what the nature of that conversation was and why he failed to disclose it.

Sessions should also be asked, and should be able to answer, why on earth he left former FBI Director James Comey alone in a room with Donald Trump, when he seemed to know, based on Comey's descriptions of his hesitation, that Trump was about to pressure Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn—and, subsequently, why he failed to ensure that Comey never had any further solo interactions with Trump, despite Comey explicitly requesting Sessions' assistance in preventing precisely that.

I'm sure Sessions will try to pass on answering anything and everything, since the last time he was being grilled by a Senate committee, specifically by Senator Al Franken, Sessions volunteered information about which Franken didn't even ask, and perjured himself like an asshole.

So he needs to be pressed to answer hard questions to which we need answers. I hope the Democrats are up for the job, because I am damn sure the Republicans aren't.