Sessions to respond to additional Senate inquiry over Russia meetings

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has pledged to respond to additional questions from Senate Democrats about his two meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the election.

Sessions' written replies will be submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday; he declined Democrats' request to attend a hearing for live questioning. The Democratic senators have indicated they "do not believe that a written submission to correct the record is sufficient," but Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has joined Sessions in rejecting demands for a second hearing.

This new inquiry comes after Sessions' announcement he would recuse himself from any investigation of the Trump campaign after news of his contact with Kislyak broke. Sessions says the meetings were strictly in his then-senatorial capacity, though he reportedly used Trump campaign funds to pay for the trip during which one meeting occurred. If he met with Kislyak as a campaign surrogate, Sessions' under-oath statements to the Judiciary Committee in January would be false.

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