This piece originally appeared at .
Before answering questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on 10 January, then-Sen. raised his hand and pledged an oath to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.
Today it Sessions violated that oath before the committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee must open a full investigation into whether the attorney general perjured himself when he said he had no contact with Russian officials during the election.
During the confirmation hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Sessions what he would do if he learned someone affiliated with the Trump campaign had any interaction with the Russian government during the run-up to the election. The question was a pointed and necessary one after intelligence reports that Russia had allegedly intervened in the presidential election to tip it in favor of his potential boss, President Trump.
Sessions replied, “I’m not aware of any of those activities.” Then he went further, stating, “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.” Soon after, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) followed up with written questions asking whether Sessions had contact with Russian officials about the 2016 election. He wrote back to the question, “No.”
But Sessions should have been aware of those activities, because he engaged in them. According to The Washington Post last night, Sessions at least twice with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US who is reportedly a top spy recruiter for Russia, when he was a senior member of the Armed Services Committee as well as an early and trusted adviser to the Trump campaign. One of the encounters was a September meeting between the two men in Sessions’ Senate office.
As Sessions knows all too well: No one is above the law — certainly not those sworn to uphold it.
What did the two talk about? According to one Justice Department official, it’s hard to say. “There’s just not strong recollection of what was said,” the official told the Post.
The position of Sessions’ team at the Justice Department, the White House, and top Republican leadership surrounding these perjury allegations seems to be: Nothing to see here. Sessions has even directly proclaimed his innocence. “I have no idea what this allegation is about,” he said in a statement released last night. “It is false.”
But such disavowals are not good enough by Sessions’ own standards. During the Clinton impeachment proceedings in 1999, the Alabama senator pushed hard for charging President Bill Clinton with perjury and, if convicted, his removal from office. During a C-Span appearance, Sessions rightly sized up the seriousness of the perjury accusation levied at Clinton. “The American people believe no one is above the law and the president has gotten himself into this fix that is very serious,” he . “I intend to give him an absolutely fair trial.”
What held true then holds true now: The Senate judiciary committee must hold an open public investigation. In 1999, Sen. Sessions himself stated the : “The Senate has demonstrated three times in the last 13 years that perjury by civil officers of the United States requires removal.”
Jeff Sessions should take his own advice and welcome a full and fair investigation into whether he lied during his confirmation hearing. The attorney general deserves to be presumed innocent, but the American people also deserve a full investigation into whether he committed a federal crime by lying under oath as well as the details on what he and Kislyak spoke about during their meetings. Anything less, as Sessions has said before, would weaken our legal system and cast doubt on whether the powerful are held to account for their crimes.
As Sessions knows all too well: No one is above the law — certainly not those sworn to uphold it.
Learn More About the Issues on This Page
-
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Civil Liberties
We Need to Know More About State Supreme Court CasesWe Need to Know More About State Supreme Court Cases
State Supreme Courts interpret laws that impact some of the most intimate parts of our lives. Communities have a right to know what’s on the docket. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Civil Liberties
New ACLU Report Reveals Most State Supreme Courts Fail to Meet Key Transparency MeasuresNew ACLU Report Reveals Most State Supreme Courts Fail to Meet Key Transparency Measures
NEW YORK — Nearly half of all state supreme courts across the country fail to regularly post new cases they are considering, with only six meeting four key transparency measures already implemented by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a new report published today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report identifies significant steps that state supreme courts should take to inform the public about their cases, which have only grown in importance as the federal judiciary has become more hostile to protecting core rights and advocates have turned to state protections and state court litigation in response. Based on an analysis of the practices and policies of the highest courts in each state, including D.C., the report “Scorecard for State Supreme Court Transparency: How Does Your State Stack Up?” ranks each state supreme court in five tiers based on compliance with four key transparency measures. These measures include posting new cases online in a timely manner, providing timely information about legal issues presented by cases, making dockets accessible and free for the public, and making merits briefing accessible and free for the public. “State courts regularly hear — and are the final word on — cases affecting abortion rights, voting rights, criminal justice reform, and more. Yet, in many instances, the highest state courts do not provide meaningful public access to information about cases affecting the rights and liberties of millions of people. We urge state supreme courts to bring more transparency to the critical work they do,” said Julie Murray, co-director of the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative. “In the face of a federal judiciary increasingly unwilling to protect core rights and an incoming administration that threatens to exacerbate that problem, state courts are an important defense for our liberty. They should be leaders in transparency, too,” said Bridget Lavender, Skadden Fellow with the Initiative. The report emphasizes that state courts “play an outsized role” in many parts of the law, but their ability to “guard our liberties depends in significant part on whether those courts adopt transparent processes.” It further highlights that state supreme courts have led the way on enormously consequential decisions in recent years. In particular, some state supreme courts have recognized the right of same sex couples to marry, and did so long before federal courts. They have also declared the death penalty unconstitutional under state law despite contrary federal law, protected access to reproductive health care as a right even as that right was being stripped away at the federal level, and provided more robust protection to people subject to unreasonable searches and seizures. The report urges state supreme courts to take action to improve their transparency practices, taking notes from the courts that have already implemented these measures. It notes that regularly posting new cases and the issues they represent, and providing timely access to dockets and merits briefing allows the public, the press, and the legal community to track cases as they unfold, identify cases with statewide consequences, and understand what’s at stake. -
Press ReleaseNov 2024
National Security
+2 Issues
ACLU Urges House to Kill Bill that Could Give Trump Admin Power to Crush Dissent and Go After Political EnemiesACLU Urges House to Kill Bill that Could Give Trump Admin Power to Crush Dissent and Go After Political Enemies
WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union strongly urges the House of Representatives to vote NO on H.R. 9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, which would grant Donald Trump and his handpicked secretary of the Treasury power to investigate and effectively shut down any tax-exempt organization — including news outlets, universities, and civil society groups — by stripping them of tax-exempt status based on an unilateral accusation of wrongdoing. “Passing this bill would hand the incoming Trump administration a dangerous new tool it could use to stifle free speech, target political opponents, and punish disfavored groups,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU. “The freedom to dissent without fear of government retribution is a vital part of any well-functioning democracy, which is why Congress must block H.R. 9495 before it’s too late.” While there is a 90-day “cure” period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process. The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations. This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as "support," making it virtually impossible to clear its name. Last month, the ACLU and a diverse array of over 130 other tax-exempt organizations — including human rights, reproductive health, and immigrants’ rights groups — wrote to Congress urging them to vote no. The letter also explains that the groups do not oppose the provisions in H.R. 9495 that relate to preventing the IRS from imposing fines and penalties on hostages while they are held abroad. Indeed, these provisions have already passed the Senate on their own, and if the House of Representatives were to pass a version of this bill that did not include the text of H.R. 6408, it could be sent immediately to President Biden for his signature. -
News & CommentaryNov 2024
Civil Liberties
Donald Trump Will Return to the White House in January. The ACLU is Ready.Donald Trump Will Return to the White House in January. The ACLU is Ready.
Starting in 2016, the ACLU filed more than 400 legal actions against Trump and his administration. As Trump returns to the White House, we’re ready to return to the courts and Congress to fight for our civil liberties.