What did Jeff Sessions do . Did he tell the truth under oath about what he did and do the facts about what he did and said compromise his authority as the nations chief Law Enforcement officer. This morning cnn learned Jeff Sessions who was a u. Slt senator and Trump Campaign supporter met twice last year with the Russian Ambassador to russia. Why might this matter . Because repeated contacts between Trump Officials and ambassadors and senator sessions under oath said he was not part of it. And if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do . Senator franken, im not aware of any of those activity. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and i did not have communications with the russians. I did not have communications with the russians he said then. Now we know he did have communications with the Russian Ambassador. But a short time ago he defended this sworn testimony. Well, i have not met with any russians at any time to discuss any political campaign, and those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false. I dont have anything else to say about that. What about the calls to recuse yourself from your agencys probe of the well, ive said that whenever its appropriate, i will recuse myself. Theres no doubt about that. When its appropriate, i will recuse myself. Stay tuned for developments on that. We have developments breaking all over the world, from the Justice Department to the capital of moscow. Lets begin with Laura Jarrett from the Justice Department. What are the facts here . Reporter the attorney general seems to want to draw a line now between conversations he had with his senator hat on and those as a campaign surrogate. But the real issue here is transparency at this point. In his Judiciary Committee questionnaire earlier this year senator Patrick Leahy wrote, quote, several of the president elects nominees or senior advisers have russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the russian government about the 2016 election either before or after election day . Sessions response was no. Now the white house says that sessions ian sers on this were consistent and truthful. He wasnt acting as a trump surrogate. This is the latest attacks against the Trump Administration bipartisan democrats. But, of course, the chorus of voices calling for sessions to step aside today is growing louder every minute, and with republicans as well. This as we are also learning from the New York Times last night that the Obama Administration in the waning days sought to distribute widely information about russian hacking into the election. So there are a lot of moving pieces here, poppy, john. There are indeed. Laura jarrett stay with us. We want to get straight to capitol hill for the reaction from there. Thats where Sunlen Serfaty is. This is not just split along party lines. This is not just democrats calling for him to recuse or resign. This is from Top Republicans . Thats right, poppy. Swift reaction on capitol hill from democrats and notably many republicans now calling for sessions to recuse himself. You have many democrats, too. A growing number of democrats asking for him and calling for him to resign including just the latest, senator Claire Mccaskill who also earlier this morning essentially called out Jeff Sessions for his defense, saying these communications happened in his capacity on the Senate Armed Services committee. Mccaskill tweeting, ive been on the Armed Services committee for ten year. No call or meeting with Russian Ambassador ever. Ambassadors call foreign members of relations committee. As you noted earlier, a top republican, Jason Chaffetz tweeting out moments ago, ag sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself. We just heard in the last few minutes on cnn senator franken. He is the senator who was at the confirmation hearing when sessions was having the hearing for attorney general, and he questioned him asking him if there were any done taccontacts. This morning senator franken said his answer then was misleading at best. At the very least this was extremely misleading. I dont i would love for him im going to be sending him a letter to have him explain himself. But he made a bald statement that during the campaign he had not met with the russians. Thats not true. Whether he in his head thought that he was answering whether he talked to any russians about the campaign, hen he should have said so. He should have said i met with the Russian Ambassador a couple times, but we didnt discuss the campaign. There will be a lot of action up here on capitol hill. Within the next hour we will hear from nancy pelosi who has already called for sessions resignation. Well also hear from senator Chuck Schumer at a press conference in just about an hour. Very clear, poppy and john. Democrats are keeping up the pressure. Well hear from pat leahy, senior democrat in the Judiciary Committee. Well get a changes to ask him, do you feel Jeff Sessions lied to you in that committee. Sunlen serfaty on capitol hill. Thanks so much. Of course, Kevin Mccarthy and Jason Chaffetz calling for recusal. Unlikely that would happen if it wasnt already in the works. Stay tuned. That could happen any minute. Meanwhile, russia says when it comes to all this controversy, this is not their headache. Keep this in mind. According to former u. S. Officials, u. S. Intelligence considers the Russian Ambassador kislyak one of rushs top spies and spy recruiters. Well bring in International Diplomatic editor Nic Robertson who is in moscow. What is russia saying about all this. Reporter theyre pushing back hard, saying this is misinformation by the media. Calling it media vandalism, coming from the spokeswoman for the ministry. She says how low can the media go . She said we used to talk about propaganda and then hype. They says this is a situation, and shes aiming this directly at cnn, where she is saying this is the media, the western media is becoming big brother, as in George Orwells 1982 i say 82, because thats what she said. We believe she cement his book 1984. Shes also pointed out russian diplomats, this is their job, ambassadors around the world. This is their job to meet with people. From the Russian Point of view, this is a very robust defense of their position. They see this as an american problem. The spokesman for Vladimir PutinDmitry Peskov has said today this is something that is an emotionally charged environment inside washington at the moment. Theres a real sense here in moscow that this is something that the United States needs to sort out amongst its own politicians and diplomats and not involve russia. Theres a sense here that any possibility of a renewed relationship between the United States and russia is really being washed away at this time. So a great deal of consternation and specific anger being fired at thoegs who would accuse the Russian Ambassador in washington of being a spy. Nic robertson in moscow, thank you very much. Lets bring in our panel. Dug high is with us, cnn political commentator and republican strategist. Also joining us in a moment will be brian fallon, our political commentator and former press secretary for Hillary Clinton. Also still with us, our justice reporter Laura Jarrett. Let me begin with you, doug. The highest ranking republican yet to reply this morning, Kevin Mccarthy. Here is how he put it. I think the trust of the American People, you recuse yourself in these situations. You said you would urge him to recuse himself . I dont have all the information in front of me. I dont want to prejudge. I think for any investigation going forward, you want to make sure everybody trusts the investigations, theres no doubt within the investigation does that require his recusal, congressman . I think it would be easier from that standpoint, yes. I think it would be easier from that standpoint, yes. Twofold question. One, doug, would he will calling for that were a recusal not in the works . Two, can republicans on the hill afford not to call for recusal at this point . On the first point, we dont know yet. The story obviously broke late yesterday. We dont have enough information. Thats what Kevin Mccarthy wanted, more information. Given his comments and jason chaif fits comments, i think more and more republicans will be calling for that. Your second question, when you talk to Congressional Republicans as i do every day, theres a constand yin and yang on where they stand on trump. Yesterday were talking about Donald Trumps speech, how well he did, how he defied expectations and is this a pivot and so forth. Now were talking about whether the attorney needs to recuse himself. Weve seen this time and time again with trump where they have one day of good news and at the end of the day we get bad news. Its why Congressional Republicans in the house and senate are always nervous. When they see good news, they worry bad news is just around the corner. The number two member of the house, republican member calling for recusal before 9 00 a. M. In the morning. I dont know it can last much past noon. We will continue to watch that. Brian fallon, former spokesman for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Before that, at the Justice Department. So you have connections here to this. In your mind, i suppose as a democrat, not as a Justice Department former spokesman, is recusal enough here for the attorney general . First of all, i think he needs to take the step of recusing himself. As of this morning he was still dodging that question. According to the wall street journal hes under investigation himself, these contacts he had with the Russian Ambassador are themselves being looked at by the fbi. I think there was sufficient basis for him to need to recuse himself before based on the role he had in the Trump Campaign. Now that hes one of the subjects of the review conducted by the fbi he cant possibly stay atop that investigation. I think recusal is a matter of hours, not a question of the any longer. Then the larger question becomes, poe testimony criminal conduct here. Jeff sgss in the late 1990 when the issue was bill clinton was very clear perjury is a basis to have to step down and leave your office. I think theres going to be increasing calls not just for Jeff Sessions to recuse himself, but to step down. It was a black and white question posed to him. He answered it definitively. Usually in these circumstances youd see him or a representative from him saying he didnt remember the meeting. The perjury statute actually involves a willfulness standard. Here theyre acknowledging he full well remembered the meetings and tray ear trying to claim it was not a pertinent thing for him to have to mention. Thats pretty choppy waters for him legally. I think theres a clear perjury charge to be filed here. I would look for the democrats on the committee to try to force Chuck Grassleys hand to make a referral on the perjury charge to the u. S. Attorney and the district of columbia. I think hes going to have to retain private counsel. This was a conversation he had in a hearing before he was actually confirmed. This is not an official Justice Department function. I think hes in legal hot water. Cnn is not reporting what the wall street journal is on the fact that sessions is under investigation or was investigated by federal officials. We dont have that yet. Laura, here are the facts. What we do mow is attorney general sessions had these two meetings in july and september. His own Justice Department says it. We know one was totally in private. So we also know that right now contact, alleged contact between trump advisers and the campaign and russia is being investigated. There is actually no question that sessions would have to be a witness in his own investigation, correct . And if thats the case, when how can he investigate it . So if he recuse us himself, who does it, who leads . Thats a very interesting observation, poppy. If he decides to step aside, there is a mechanism here for the acting demity attorney general, dana ben they to come in and step in and take over this investigation and sessions can step aside without having to resign or anything like that. There is precedent for that. Theres history. The attorney general holder did that, mukasey did that. Theres a mechanism to do that. Its going to be up to sessions at this point. There is no longer the independent counsel statute which would have helped congress prompt this. Its really going to be up to him on the timing for moving Something Like that forward. Doug, just to be clear, whats the political cost at this point . It seems like thats a relatively easy move to make at this point, say, you know what . Its just too murky right now, too much smoke here, i shouldnt be involved. I think the political loss is massive not just for the attorney general but the entire administration. Just yesterday we were talking about donald trump potentially turning a corner, pivoting, what a great night it was for him. Were not talking about that anymore. We know as we go further down the line, democrats will continue to talk about this, not just franken and leahy. Nancy pelosi has weighed in. Since were seeing republicans already ble going to crack, mccarthy and chaffetz, theres indications that more republicans will and the cost will be massive. Senator meet with ambassador, they do. And thats sort of part of sessions defense here. The difference here, is it not, the timing, especially the second meeting, especially the september meeting because that was at the height of the investigation sorry at the height of the concern after the hacks of the dnc to be sure. Right. The concern about how much russia was trying to tip the scales in the election. How much is timing a factor here, not just the fact that there was this meeting . So timing is a factor. I also think its a factor that, look, while it may be not unusual for certain senators to meet with foreign ambassadors, its actually unusual for them to do so based on their assignment on the Senate Armed Services committee which is the panel on which Jeff Sessions serves. The Washington Post which broke this story actually surveyed the other members of the committee. No other Committee Members met with the Russian Ambassador even once in their duties as a representative on the Senate Armed Services committee. He met with this representative from russia twice. Just to clarify, 26 of those members, 20 got back to the Washington Post said they didnt meet. Six of them did not respond. That includes the chairman of the committee, john mccain. You would have thought if the panel had business that would have necessitated a meeting with the Russian Ambassador, at least you would have seen a meeting happen at the level of the chairman. Its quite interesting when you have all these rumors swirling about, connections between the Trump Campaign and the russian government, the only member of the Panel Meeting with the russian government is Jeff Sessions. Secondly, they changed their story in the last few hours since the story initially broke. The Jeff Sessions spokesperson changed the story about what exactly was discussed. Initially they said he couldnt remember what was discussed in the september conversation. Then the Administration Official put out a quote late last night saying they did discuss the election, it was perfunctory, just in passing. Now this morning Jeff Sessions is remembering everything and saying he didnt talk about the election. The changing story is another basis to question this. Lastly, he was not just asked about it once in the open hearing by senator franken