.@SenWhitehouse imagines a scenario in which AG @jeffsessions was a "message boy" between Russians, Trump camp https://t.co/8r7ysKM9Gs
— New Day (@NewDay) March 8, 2017
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) says he can envision a scenario where Attorney General Jeff Sessions passed messages between President Trump and Russia during the campaign.
“You can imagine a set of circumstances in which the Trump campaign gave him talking points [and] he was a message boy for them,” Whitehouse told host Alisyn Camerota on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday.
“There was a content related to the relations between USA and Russia, favorable to Russia that would have encouraged them to support the Trump campaign. And then he returned back to the Trump campaign and said, ‘Done it, you know, mission accomplished here,’ ” he added.
{mosads}“And if that were the case it would be really, really hard to believe that he didn’t remember that. If it was just a casual courtesy meeting then, forgetting it or not, being truthful about it may be a little more understandable.”
Sessions acknowledged last week that he met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign, then denied doing so during his confirmation hearings.
Sessions said he would recuse himself from any federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 race following the revelations.
However, Whitehouse said accusing Sessions of perjury during his confirmation hearing is premature.
“I don’t think we can know that yet,” he said.
“I think there’s some circumstantial evidence that needs to be developed about what the content was of the communications between him and the Russian ambassador and whether he communicated that content back to the Trump campaign.”