Thanks, my dear. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy monday. There are only 100 people who serve in the United States senate. Like the how it is, the senate does all its work through committees. Thats where they work on legislation and oversight and investigations. There are a lot of internal politics about who gets on what committee and who gets to be chair of a committee. In some states, certain committees are very important and give you a lot of homestate advantage if youre on those committees. You can understand why a senator from iowa would want to be on the Agricultural Committee or why one from new york would want to be on the banning committee. But some of the committees, no matter where youre from, everybody wants to be on them because they are prestigious in all the right ways for everybody in the senate. And so even though there are only 100 u. S. Senators in total, 26 out of the 100 senators are on the Armed Services committee, more than one in every four senators is on that committee because they all want to be on the Armed Services committee. I think they decided at one point rather than make the Armed Services committee hard to get onto than make the senators committee, theyre just going to let everybody be on the committee. 26 out of the hundred members of the senate. A couple months ago at the beginning of march, National Security reporters from the Washington Post, they got in touch with every single senator who serves on the Armed Services committee in the senate. And they asked the one very specific question. They didnt want full length interviews or these senators to weigh in on some controversial issue, how they were going to vote on a specific by they just approached them all with a yesorno question. And the question was this. Senator, you serve on the Armed Services committee. Did you meet with the Russian Ambassador last year . That was the question. Washington post asked all 26 senators on the Armed Services committee. They didnt get a response from all of them. They got a response from 20 of the 26. And every single one of the 20 senators who answered, answer the same way. All 20 of them, 20 out of 20 said, no, thanks for asking, no. I did not meet with the Russian Ambassador last year. And by the time the Washington Post was asking this question in the last days of february for publication on the first day of march this year, at that time one longtime member of the senate Armed Services committee had just left that committee. In fact had just left the United States senate because at the beginning of february he had just been confirmed as the next attorney general of the United States. His name is Jeff Sessions, former alabama senator. Not course of his confirmation hearing to become attorney general, he had volunteered to minnesota senator al franken that during the course of the president ial campaign where hed been such a high profile supporter of donald trump, he said he had not met with any russians. He volunteered that under oath at his confirmation hearing talking about to senator al franken. He then put it in writing. Senator pat lay hee of vermont submitted a question of Jeff Sessions in writing where he asked him 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 . Jeff sessions gave a oneword answer to that question, no. But then on march 1st this year, the Washington Post published this story documenting the fact, quirk with multiple sources, despite thosen Jeff Sessions stating without any caveat he had never had any meetings with the russians, theres the Washington Post reporters adam ento us, ellen knack she ma, agreeing miller saying yeah our brand new attorney general Jeff Sessions he did meet with russias ambassador to the United States. He met with the Russian Ambassador at a Heritage Foundation meeting that had been held on the sidelining of the Republican NationalConvention Last summer. In addition to that, they reported he had a second meeting with the same russian official in private, oneonone, in his Senate Office on september 8th. And when this Washington Post reporting came out on march 1st, Jeff Sessions and the new Trump Administration spokesperson at the Justice Department, they insisted there was nothing at all strange, nothing even unexpected about the fact that Jeff Sessions would be having a oneonone meeting in private in his Senate Office with the Russian Ambassador eight weeks before the president ial elections. They insisted this had nothing to do with the Trump Campaign and it was a normal, totally forgettable meeting, because this is the kind of thing they do all the time. This was just related to his Armed Services committee membership. Thats what this is Committee Senators do. That was their defense. Thats why it was particularly awkward that the Washington Post learned that not a single other member of the enormous senate Armed Services committee had taken even a single meeting with the ambassador in the last year, let alone two. Nobody else was doing this. There are a lot of other senators on the Armed Services committee, only Jeff Sessions was meeting with the russians. So this has ended up being a problem for attorney general Jeff Sessions in an ongoing way for a few reasons. The first is that these meetings, these contacts remain unexplained. The russian attack on the u. S. Election to try to help Hillary Clinton, help donald trump, that was well underway by the time of the conventions when the first of Jeff Sessions first meetings took place with a russian official. By the time of his second meeting with that russian official, not only had the russian attack been going on for months, by that point it was very big news. Washington post says that second meeting between sessions and the russian official, the one that happened oneonone in private in his office, they say that happened on september 8th, that was a thursdays. The start of that same week, monday, the Washington Post had run this screaming headline. U. S. Investigating potential covert russian plan to disrupt november elections. That same day, president obama had met directly with Vladimir Putin and told look at the look on his face. That is the week that obama met with putin and told him to knock off these russian government attempts to affect our elections. Cut it out. And then just a few days after that, the top russian Government Official operating in the United States takes a oneonone private meeting with the first senator to endorse donald trump whos the most prominent senator in the Trump Campaign. This was happening when the russian attack on our elections was a huge news story. I mean, that week, our president confronted their president about it. It was on the front page of the National Papers at that point. Thats when sessions met with kislyak. Did that he talk about the russian attack on the election . Given the news at that moment it would be weird if they didnt, right . Any high ranking american meeting with any high ranking russian at that point presumably would have been talking about the russian attack on our election. This was an affront, right . Did they talk about it . I should mention that there are also numerous unconfirmed routers that there may have been a third meeting between attorney general Jeff Sessions and that same russian official. Its been reported that fired fbi director james comey might have discussed that alleged third meeting in closed session last week right after his testimony we saw in open session on thursday. But the Justice Department and Jeff Sessions himself have insistly and consistently denied that there was any third meeting. As yet, truth be told, there has been no public evidence that any third meeting took place. You know, as a general principle, until you have compelling evidence to the contrary, you want to take the top Law Enforcement official at his word as to what he did or didnt do. And that brings us to the other reason these russian meetings have been such a big problem for Jeff Sessions. You want to take him at his word, but with Jeff Sessions, theres a problem with that. If these meetings he had with this russian official were innocuous, nothing to write home about as the attorney general has repeatedly claimed, why did he deny for so long these meetings ever took place . He denied he had these meetings out loud under oath. He denied he had these meetings in print in his written answers from his confirmation hearing, and when the Washington Post first started reporting out these meetings, they went to attorney general Jeff Sessions for comment, and he denied it to them too on march 1st, the Washington Post reported these two meetings included in the report, sessions statement, quote, he never met with any russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false. Washington post story comes out march 1st. The next day, march 2nd, Jeff Sessions gives a hastily convened press conference where he announces he is recusing himself from anything that has to do with the president ial campaign. Now, that recusal is often described, often reported as Jeff Sessions having recused himself from overseeing anything that has to do with the russia investigation. And in part, that is true. The russian attack on your election, the possibility the Trump Campaign colluded in it, investigations into that, that is part of what Jeff Sessions is recused from. But if you look at his recusal which he issued in print, he recused himself from any investigation that has anything to do with the whole 2016 election campaign. So that recusal was announced on march 2nd. And that ended up being really, really important and at question. A couple months later when the Trump Administration decided they were going to fire the fbi director james comey. Now, you might remember the administration had a song and dance about the whyway they fired james comey. They published the a a memo from Rod Rosenstein. And then they also published the youre fired letter from President Trump to james comey telling him he was out of a job. For the first 24 hours or so after they fired the fbi director, the rosenstein memo and the sessions letter created i think its fair to call it a pretext for the white house to argue that comey wasnt being fired because he was overseeing the russia investigation. Comey was being fired because of how he handled his Public Disclosures around the Hillary Clinton email investigation right before the election during the campaign. That was the pretext they created for why comey was fired. They did that in writing with that memo in that letter, they did it in statements with white house officials, even speaking from the podium in the White House Briefing room. The president himself blew that pretext and explained that wasnt the reason. Actually he had been thinking about the russia investigation when he decided to fire comey kmoimt. In either case, Jeff Sessions has a continuing problem here. If the president fired comey because of his oversight of the russia investigation, attorney general Jeff Sessions should not have been involved in that, right . He was supposedly recused from that. So if youre recused from the trumprussia investigation, under no understanding of a recusal, should you be able to fire the person running it is a say youre recused . Even if the president hadnt fired comey because of the russia investigation or the Hillary Clinton email thing during the campaign, like it said in that memo from Rod Rosenstein and like the white house explained 3w40e8 first day and a half, even if that were true. That too would be a problem for attorney general Jeff Sessions because he also should have been recused from that. His recusal said he would not oversee anything at the Justice Department that had anything to do with the 2016 campaign. Both the reason james comey was fired, russia, and the fake pretext they came up with, clinton emails, both of those are squarely in the bounds of Jeff Sessions recusal. Hes supposed to be recused from anything to do with the campaign. In either case, he should have had nothing to do with firing james comey. If the fbi director was fired for either of those reasons, the attorney general should have been recused from that and arguably, he shouldnt also have been recused from the process of hiring comeys replacement. But Jeff Sessions absolutely has been involved in the process of selecting james comeys replacement. Hes been doing the interviewing. He was involved in that firing decision too. We still dont know exactly how many times Jeff Sessions met with russian officials during the campaign, nor do we have any explanation from Jeff Sessions as to what happened at those meetings, particularly because they happened in the midst of the russia attack on that election in which Jeff Sessions had such a prominent role. Nor do we have explanation about why he lied about and concealed those meetings repeatedly and for so long. When it comes to that private september 8th meeting in his office, oneonone with the Russian Ambassador f he tries to say the Armed Services members do that all the time, then you have permission to jeer at your tv screen or laugh out loud because none of the senators were meeting with the russians. It was just Jeff Sessions for whatever reason. Senator sessions will have to answer questions about at least some of this stuff tomorrow. His testimony starts at 2 30 eastern time. Hell be in front of Senate Intelligence committee. On friday night i told you Jeff Sessions was do you to be testifying tomorrow morning in the house and then in the senate in a couple of subcommittees that oversee the funding of the Justice Department. He ended up cancelling both of those appearances. We will be able to watch it on tv tomorrow. You will notice as soon as he starts testifying this is the same committee that heard from james comey in open session. This is the same committee that took a long meeting today with the former secretary of Homeland Security, jay johnson. This is the same completed whos onsite classified facility, their skiff was apparently the sight of a meeting with mike rogers tonight. Mike rogers testified over and over again last week before that committee that he wouldnt say in open session whether or not the president had asked him to intervene into the fbis ongoing criminal investigation of mike flynn. It was interesting, the director of National Intelligence testifying at the same committee, he kept seeing he wouldnt testify about that either, but he didnt have a reason why he wouldnt testify. Admiral rogers, head of the nsa, at least he had a reason. He said his discussions were classified with the president for some reason, and he said that gave him a reaso