Fire Comey: Russia Investigation and Oversight Hearing

fire comey: Sessions advised the Senate Judiciary Committee at the outset of his first oversight hearing as attorney general that he would not answer any questions about conversations with the president that he considered confidential, according to The Chronicle Herald. He largely adhered to that principle during the five-hour hearing, refusing to say what Trump told him about his reasons for wanting to fire Comey, whether Trump confided in him his concern about lifting the cloud of the Russia investigation and whether he had asked him to drop a criminal case against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona. The repeated, often-testy questioning about the Russia investigation, coming even as Sessions spearheads sweeping changes to the Justice Department in the areas of LGBT rights, criminal justice and immigration, illustrates the extent to which the probe continues to shadow Sessions even though he recused himself months ago. Sessions deflected the questions by maintaining that presidents are entitled to have private discussions with Cabinet secretaries, saying at one point, I do not confirm or deny the existence of any communication between the president that I consider to be confidential. It was, he said, the first time I'm aware of in which an FBI director had performed the traditional role of Justice Department prosecutors by announcing on his own the conclusion of a federal investigation that no charges would be brought against Clinton. Still, Sessions' defence of the Comey firing and his insistence that it stemmed from the handling of the Hillary Clinton email case was consistent with the initial explanation by the White House. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.