Dem Rep: ‘Absolutely’ I think Sessions perjured himself

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) says he believes that Attorney General Jeff Sessions “absolutely” committed perjury when he told lawmakers earlier this year that he was unaware of any contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday, Lieu said that recent revelations that two former foreign policy advisers for the Trump campaign met with Russian representatives during the presidential race provided clear evidence that Sessions had lied in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

“He lied under oath at least twice, and most recently Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, based on their testimony and their statements, they show that Jeff Sessions contradicted himself when he said he was not aware of any campaign official talking to the Russians,” Lieu said.

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“It’s very clear both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos were doing that, and they let him know they were doing that.”

It was revealed earlier this week that Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with a Kremlin-linked professor who boasted that the Russians had “thousands of emails” of dirt on former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

According to court documents released Monday, Papadopoulos told campaign officials, including then-candidate Trump, that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between the real estate mogul and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Page, another foreign policy adviser for the campaign, told investigators on the House Intelligence Committee this week that he met with Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip to Moscow. That testimony contradicted Page’s previous accounts of the trip.

Sessions and Trump have both previously said that they had no knowledge of any communications between campaign members and Russia – statements that appear to be contradicted by the revelations of Papadopoulos’s and Page’s meetings.

Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election and whether anyone on the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian officials during the race is the subject of an investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump and his associates have repeatedly denied the notion of collusion between the campaign and Moscow, and have insisted that there were no improper contacts or communications with Russia.