Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) says Attorney General Jeff Sessions' letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee is "a ridiculous response" to accusations that he misled senators in his sworn testimony during his January confirmation hearing.
Franken had asked Sessions what he would do if he found out that Donald Trump's campaign was communicating with Russian officials, and Sessions offered up that he was "called a surrogate a time or two in that campaign" and "did not have communications with the Russians." It later came out that during the campaign, when he was a senator and foreign policy adviser to Trump, Sessions met twice with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. "It's hard to come to any other conclusion than he just perjured himself," Franken told CNN Tuesday.
In his letter sent Monday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions said his testimony was "correct" and he did not mislead the senators because he was never specifically asked about meetings with the ambassador. Franken told CNN he waited until he read the letter from Sessions to publicly accuse him of not telling the truth, adding that he thinks Sessions should come before the Senate Judiciary Committee again to explain himself.
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