In an early morning stake out by an NBC reporter crew in front of his house, Attorney General Jeff Sessions once again denied meeting with any Russian officials during the course of the presidential election to talk about the Trump campaign.
"I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign," he said, "and those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false. And I don't have anything else to say about that."
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When asked about the calls by Democrats to recuse himself from investigating any alleged ties between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, Sessions added: "I have said whenever it's appropriate, I will recuse myself. There's no doubt about that."
He may have no choice: moments ago after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy urged Sessions to recuse himself, ethics chief Jason Chaffetz chimed in as well:
AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) March 2, 2017
As reported previously, Sessions' spokeswoman confirmed late on Wednesday night that he had met with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before the presidential election last year in his capacity as a then-senator, raising questions about whether he misled fellow senators during his confirmation hearing in January. His spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, told NBC News on Wednesday that Sessions, who was a prominent Trump surrogate last year, did have a conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last year.
She added "there was absolutely nothing misleading about his answer" because Sessions was asked during the hearing about "communications between Russia and the Trump campaign" and not about meetings he took as a member of the Armed Services Committee.
The DOJ told NBC that Sessions had one private meeting with the Russian ambassador last September as part of his capacity as a senator. The other encounter came after he gave a speech at the Republican National Convention in July and a group of ambassadors approached him. He did not have a one-on-one meeting with the Russians at the time.
Meanwhile, on Thursday morning Moscow also chimed in on the latest scandal involving the Trump administration when Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he was unaware that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, but said such meetings were routine.
"I don't know the details of any meetings," said Peskov. "(But) the ambassador's job is to hold as many meetings as possible."
Peskov said talk of possible Russian involvement in the U.S. presidential campaign, something Moscow categorically denies, was an internal matter for the United States. But, in a veiled warning that relations between the US and Russia are once again on the rocks, he said it served to create an atmosphere in which the idea of repairing U.S.-Russia ties was harder to sell.