Franken Demands Answers From Sessions On Russia After Papadopoulos Plea

Sen. Al Franken questions Sen. Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing to be the next U.S. Attorney General. Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Aiden Pink November 2, 2017

Sen. Al Franken publicly released a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday asking him to clarify his past statements on his knowledge of Russian connections to the Trump presidential campaign in light of the guilty plea by former campaign aide George Papadopoulos.

According to press reports, Sessions was present when Papadopoulos announced in March 2016 that he had had conversations with figures close to Russian president Vladimir Putin and proposed setting up a meeting between Putin and Trump. But Sessions told Franken in sworn testimony last month that the was not aware of any contacts between Trump campaign figures and Russians.

“Once again, developments in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have brought to light evidence that you failed to tell the truth about your interactions with Russian operatives during the campaign, as well as your awareness of Russian contacts by other members of the Trump campaign team,” Franken wrote in his eight-page letter, which includes a series of questions for Sessions about his knowledge of Papadopoulos’ affairs. Franken’s letter includes 35 separate questions.

Franken and Sessions previously clashed during Sessions’ confirmation hearing in January, when Sessions said that he had never made any contact with Russian officials during the campaign. Sessions later admitted that he had, in fact, met several times with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected]

Aiden Pink is the Deputy News Editor for the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO