Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Nevada senators turn up heat on Sessions

Updated Thursday, March 2, 2017 | 2:01 p.m.

Catherine Cortez Masto

Catherine Cortez Masto

Both of Nevada’s senators turned up pressure today on Attorney General Jeff Sessions as news of Sessions’ contact with a Russian official during the presidential campaign continued to garner national attention.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto joined fellow Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in calling on Sessions to resign his post after revelations Wednesday showed Sessions might have lied under oath during his Senate confirmation hearing by denying contact with Russian officials.

Sessions reportedly spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice during the 2016 campaign, during which time the former Alabama senator served as an adviser to Donald Trump.

“Attorney General Sessions’ actions undermine the integrity of the office and the department that he has been trusted to oversee in a fair and impartial manner, and he must immediately resign,” Cortez Masto said in a statement.

“Even the appearance of impropriety is inherently disqualifying for anyone serving as our nation’s top law enforcement official,” Cortez Masto said. “Sessions has been in office less than one month and it is already clear that he cannot be trusted to uphold our nation’s laws, let alone our basic principles of transparency and honesty.”

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller joined a growing number of Republicans, including Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Darrell Issa of California and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, in asking Sessions to recuse himself from an investigation by the Department of Justice into potential Russian interference in the presidential election.

“Attorney General Sessions should explain his interactions with the Russian ambassador and then recuse himself from the DOJ’s Russia probe,” Heller said, according to a report from NBC News.

Sessions subsequently this afternoon announced he was stepping away from the investigation.

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