California Rep. Adam Schiff blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday morning, suggesting that the country’s top law enforcement official deliberately misled senators about his meetings with the Russian ambassador during his January confirmation hearing.

“You don’t, I think, treat a visit in your office by the Russian ambassador as something casual, something not memorable,” the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe. “And when you’re asked about your contacts with Russians in the Senate, that should have been disclosed. I think he knew it should have been disclosed.”

Sessions, then an Alabama senator and surrogate for President Trump, met with Kremlin ambassador Sergei Kislyak twice during the campaign, once during the Republican National Convention in July and two months later in September. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he did not have any contact with the Russians in the course of the election season.

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Sessions has maintained that he did not mislead the Senate, asserting that his communications with the envoy had to do with Senate business, not the campaign. Schiff has called that explanation of the discrepancy “not credible,” and demanded along with other Democrats that Sessions resign as attorney general.

The ex-Alabama senator has now recused himself from any investigation into the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

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