DOJ: Sessions did not disclose meetings with Russian officials on security clearance form

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions applied for his security clearance, he neglected to share meetings he'd had in 2016 with Russian officials, the Justice Department told CNN on Wednesday.

The SF-86 form requires that a person list "any contact" they or their family had with a "foreign government" or its "representatives" over the last seven years, officials told CNN, and Sessions, who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at least two times in 2016, did not mention these encounters. Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told CNN that Sessions and his staff were told by the FBI they did not need to list meetings he had with foreign ambassadors that took place while he was still a senator.

"My interpretation is that a member of Congress would still have to reveal the appropriate foreign government contacts notwithstanding it was on official business," Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney specializing in national security law, told CNN. During his Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, Sessions, an early Trump supporter, also did not disclose his interactions with Kislyak.

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