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| Sessions Refuses to Discuss His Conversations With Trump About Comey or Russia | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| • Attorney General Jeff Sessions has begun testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. | • Attorney General Jeff Sessions has begun testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. |
| • Mr. Sessions told lawmakers he would not discuss his conversations with President Trump, citing executive privilege, a tack he has taken before that angered Democrats because Mr. Trump has not invoked the privilege. | |
| • Mr. Sessions is also being asked about the Justice Department’s narrower approach to civil rights protections and his hard line on immigration enforcement. | |
| • Do not expect Mr. Sessions to talk much about the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. He has recused himself from overseeing it because of his role as a campaign adviser to Mr. Trump. | • Do not expect Mr. Sessions to talk much about the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. He has recused himself from overseeing it because of his role as a campaign adviser to Mr. Trump. |
| Here is the latest: | Here is the latest: |
| Mr. Sessions said he would not talk about his conversations with Mr. Trump unless and until the president decided to waive executive privilege, which provides a legal basis for keeping their discussions secret from Congress. | |
| “Consistent with a longstanding policy and practice of the executive branch, I can neither assert executive privilege, nor can I disclose today the content of my confidential conversations with the president,” Mr. Sessions said, adding that he could not waive that privilege himself. “As a result, during today’s hearing and under these circumstances today, I will not be able to discuss the content of my conversations with the president.” | |
| When he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in June, Mr. Sessions had refused to answer several questions about his conversations with Mr. Trump regarding the Russia investigation and the president’s firing of James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director. Mr. Sessions told lawmakers that it would be “inappropriate” to detail those discussions because those matters were potentially covered by executive privilege. | |
| The move angered Democrats because Mr. Trump had not invoked the privilege. Last week, all nine Democrats on the committee sent Mr. Sessions a letter saying they either wanted him to answer questions that he refused to answer in June, or that they expected Mr. Trump to formally invoke the privilege to keep those matters secret. | |
| “With respect to potential assertions of executive privilege on behalf of the president, we wish to put you on notice that any reasonable period of abeyance on many of the issues about which you will be asked has long elapsed,” they wrote. | “With respect to potential assertions of executive privilege on behalf of the president, we wish to put you on notice that any reasonable period of abeyance on many of the issues about which you will be asked has long elapsed,” they wrote. |
| For a time, Mr. Trump regularly denigrated Mr. Sessions in an apparent effort to get him to step aside so he could appoint a new attorney general who would not be recused from matters related to the 2016 election and could seize control of the Russia investigation. | |
| Democrats will seek assurances that Mr. Sessions is providing resources and protection for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to continue his work undisturbed. | |
| Mr. Sessions did not shed new light on his role in Mr. Trump’s abrupt firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, again invoking the president’s right to private conversations when pressed by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top Democrat. | |
| Instead, Mr. Sessions reiterated that Mr. Trump had asked earlier that both he and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, make a recommendation about Mr. Comey’s future in writing. He said they had objected to how Mr. Comey had run the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information while secretary of state. Mr. Comey ultimately recommended she not be charged but harshly criticized her behavior, calling her “extremely careless.” | |
| “I don’t think it’s been fully understood the significance of the error Mr. Comey made on the Clinton matter,” Mr. Sessions said. And after Mr. Comey told lawmakers during a hearing that he felt the matter was properly handled and that he would act in the same way again, Mr. Sessions said, it was clear to him that the F.B.I. needed a “fresh start.” | |
| Mr. Sessions said he could neither confirm nor deny that Mr. Trump had raised concerns to him about the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s election interference when discussing Mr. Comey. | |
| “That calls for a communication that I have had with the president and I believe it remains confidential,” Mr. Sessions said. | |
| The law that forms the basis for the government’s warrantless surveillance program, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, is set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress extends it. Under questioning from the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, Mr. Sessions emphasized that the Trump administration continued to oppose the primary change proposed to the law: requiring the F.B.I. to get a warrant to search the repository of emails intercepted under that program for something involving an American criminal suspect. | |
| “Mr. Chairman, it is not legally required, in my opinion, to have a warrant requirement,” Mr. Sessions said, noting that the targets of the surveillance under the program were people abroad, who are not protected by the Constitution. “I don’t not believe that we could carry out the responsibilities that we are expected to do with a warrant requirement for any of the 702 type material.” | |
| Mr. Grassley’s counterpart in the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, has sponsored a bill, the USA Liberty Act, that would impose a warrant requirement for F.B.I. agents, working on ordinary criminal cases, to search for and use Americans’ emails collected without a warrant. | |
| Mr. Sessions is also likely to face questions, at least from Democrats, about how the federal government on his watch has curtailed the Obama-era approach to enforcing anti-discrimination laws, especially protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. | Mr. Sessions is also likely to face questions, at least from Democrats, about how the federal government on his watch has curtailed the Obama-era approach to enforcing anti-discrimination laws, especially protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. |
| On Oct. 6, for example, Mr. Sessions issued sweeping guidance to federal agencies and prosecutors, instructing them to take the position in court that people and organizations may claim broad exemptions from nondiscrimination laws on the basis of religious objections. Critics said the guidance would open the door to justifying a wide range of acts of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. | On Oct. 6, for example, Mr. Sessions issued sweeping guidance to federal agencies and prosecutors, instructing them to take the position in court that people and organizations may claim broad exemptions from nondiscrimination laws on the basis of religious objections. Critics said the guidance would open the door to justifying a wide range of acts of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. |
| A day earlier, the Justice Department reversed the federal government’s stance on whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans workplace discrimination on the basis of sex, provides protections for transgender people. Mr. Sessions issued a memo to the department instructing officials to take the position in court that the act does not bar acts of workplace bias against people based on their gender identity. | A day earlier, the Justice Department reversed the federal government’s stance on whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans workplace discrimination on the basis of sex, provides protections for transgender people. Mr. Sessions issued a memo to the department instructing officials to take the position in court that the act does not bar acts of workplace bias against people based on their gender identity. |
| In July, the Justice Department, without being asked for its opinion, filed a brief before an appellate court in a private workplace discrimination lawsuit, taking the position that the Civil Rights Act’s ban on sex bias does not cover sexual orientation. By contrast, the Obama-era department tried to avoid taking a position on that question, while welcoming the prospect that the law might continue to evolve in that area. | In July, the Justice Department, without being asked for its opinion, filed a brief before an appellate court in a private workplace discrimination lawsuit, taking the position that the Civil Rights Act’s ban on sex bias does not cover sexual orientation. By contrast, the Obama-era department tried to avoid taking a position on that question, while welcoming the prospect that the law might continue to evolve in that area. |
| Mr. Sessions has likewise been the face of the administration’s tough posture toward immigration enforcement, most notably its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The Obama-era program permitted people who grew up in the United States after being brought illegally to the country as children to stay and lawfully work. | Mr. Sessions has likewise been the face of the administration’s tough posture toward immigration enforcement, most notably its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The Obama-era program permitted people who grew up in the United States after being brought illegally to the country as children to stay and lawfully work. |
| In announcing its end, Mr. Sessions argued the program had harmed millions of American citizens. | In announcing its end, Mr. Sessions argued the program had harmed millions of American citizens. |
| Now, its fate is in the lap of Congress, which has until March to come up with a solution for those who had been protected by the program, who are sometimes called Dreamers. In exchange, the administration has issued a set of hard-line immigration demands that it wants to be a part of any legislative deal, including the construction of a border wall, the hiring of 10,000 immigration agents and tougher asylum laws. | Now, its fate is in the lap of Congress, which has until March to come up with a solution for those who had been protected by the program, who are sometimes called Dreamers. In exchange, the administration has issued a set of hard-line immigration demands that it wants to be a part of any legislative deal, including the construction of a border wall, the hiring of 10,000 immigration agents and tougher asylum laws. |
| “We’ll start with DACA and Dreamers and then see where we go,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said ahead of the hearing with Mr. Sessions, himself a former member of the committee as a senator from Alabama. “We see Jeff so seldom, we’ve got to catch up.” | “We’ll start with DACA and Dreamers and then see where we go,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said ahead of the hearing with Mr. Sessions, himself a former member of the committee as a senator from Alabama. “We see Jeff so seldom, we’ve got to catch up.” |