The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Committee accusing Attorney General Jeff Sessions of “professional misconduct.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint yesterday with the Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Commission against Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The complaint said that Sessions’ comments during his Senate confirmation hearings were in violation of the Bar’s code of ethics and constituted “professional misconduct.”
The comments in question had to do with Sessions’ connection to Russian government officials. When Sessions was confirmed the investigation was, and still is, underway regarding the ties of the Trump Presidential Campaign and Russian government officials. As part of the process, he was asked knew of any affiliations between the Trump campaign and the Russian officials.
After all, as Attorney General, he would be overseeing the FBI and the Justice Department. These entities would be the ones investigating the alleged role of a foreign government interfering with the integrity of a United States Presidential election.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy asked him, “Several of the president-elect’s 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 responded with a simple, “No.”
Senator Al Franken asked him what he would do if he found out anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign had communications with Russian government officials. Sessions replied, “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”
As it turns out, Sessions had in fact, met with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak—twice, both times during the time frame of the campaign. Once was on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention in July and the other in his Senate Office in September. The explosive revelation was outed in the Washington Post earlier this month.
Sessions justified this, saying he meant he had not met with Russian officials in regards to the campaign. He had met with the ambassador in regard to his Senate work, a routine practice as a Senator. As a member of the Armed Services Senate Committee, part of his work was to maintain cordial relationships with dignitaries. The question, he maintains, was in regard to his work on the campaign for Trump. While he wishes he had been more clear, he asserts that he answered the questions accurately.
“I did not mention communications I had had with the Russian ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them,” Sessions wrote in statement released Monday.
However, Senator Al Franken was waiting for the Sessions’ statement and did not buy it.
“That’s a ridiculous response. It’s not a clarification at all,” Franken told CNN.
Several senators have come to his defense, saying that it is routine for a senator to meet with an ambassador. Ted Cruz even went so far as to mention that in 2017 alone, he himself had met with ambassadors nearly 25 times. He called the whole scandal a “nothing burger.”
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin told CNN that while Sessions should have been clearer, meeting with an ambassador is in fact part of the job.
“There’s nothing wrong with the meetings,” Manchin said. “We talk about official business. [Such as] can we build a relationship so that you don’t start pushing buttons and shooting missiles at us. That part of our job as armed services.”
But, since Sessions did not clarify that in the confirmation hearings and directly denied the involvement, he is now under investigation. Some are even accusing him of perjury, including Franken.
“It’s hard to come to any other conclusion than he just perjured himself,” Franken told CNN.
Democratic Senator Al Franken, who asked one of the two incriminating questions in the first place, told CNN that Sessions’ clarification this week “was ridiculous.”
Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department’s continued effort to investigate the Trump administration. Trump also believes that Sessions did not mean to mislead anyone.
“Jeff Sessions is an honest man,” Trump said in a statement. “He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional. This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win.”
However, the ACLU complaint says that he should have known better. Deputy Director of the ACLU’s Washington Office Chris Anders was the one who filed the complaint. He told the Washington Post,
“It’s highly corrosive of a democracy to have a future AG make false statements to the Senate related to a matter that’s under investigation. And then, as part of that, the underlying matter of whether a foreign government illegally influenced the U.S. election goes to the very heart of our democracy and the sanctity of the election process. You can’t have a functioning legitimate democracy if foreign governments are influencing the outcome.”
The first stage of the complaint is the disciplinary committee who will determine if the case has merit. If so, Sessions will be asked to provide a written response. After that, a six to eighteen month investigation will take place. It will include hearings and testimonies.
If Sessions is ruled to have committed an ethics violation, he will face punishments ranging from reprimand to disbarment. If he is disbarred, he will likely not be able to serve as Attorney General. However, even Anders admits it is far too early to make any predictions.
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