U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions doesn’t need to recuse himself from a future Russia investigation unless he is also under scrutiny for wrongdoing, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday.
“If he himself is a subject of an investigation of course he would, but if he is not, I don’t see any purpose or reason for doing this,” Ryan told reporters.
Ryan, R-Wis., did not go as far as other GOP lawmakers who said Sessions should recuse himself outright from any future investigation into contacts between Russian officials and the Trump campaign or Trump administration. Sessions has been criticized for telling Congress he had no contact with Russian officials, and then having to clarify that he did meet with the Russian ambassador twice, but not in the context of the presidential campaign.
Ryan also told reporters, “It’s really common to meet with ambassadors,” and said he met with the Indian ambassador on Wednesday and recently held a reception with 100 ambassadors in a room in the Capitol.
Meanwhile, Democrats are going much further. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other top Democrats are calling on Sessions to resign.
But Ryan accused Democrats of stirring up controversy about Sessions for political purposes.
“Democrats are lighting their hair on fire to get you to cover this story,” Ryan said. “I think they are trying to get this coverage going. There is nothing new that we have seen here.”
Ryan said ongoing probes in Congress as well as the intelligence community have yielded no evidence of wrongdoing, and he rejected the need for an independent probe.
“The House, Senate intelligence committees have been investigating this,” Ryan said. “We have seen no evidence and have been presented with no evidence that anybody on the Trump campaign or an American was involved with the Russians.”
