Coats says he intends to 'try to get some details' on Sessions report

Source: Politico




By JOSH MEYER 07/21/2017 11:38 PM EDT

ASPEN, Colorado – U.S. Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said Friday that he intends to “try to get some details” about a media report alleging that Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the 2016 presidential race.

The Washington Post reported Friday that Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed those issues with Sessions during the campaign when he was serving as a top foreign policy advisor to Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia, the Post reported. It also noted that Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak, that he then denied that the meetings were about the Trump campaign, and that he has testified that he has no recollection of such an encounter last April.

One U.S. official told the Post said that Sessions has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” And it reported that a former official said that “the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had ‘substantive’ discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/21/coats-sessions-russia-report-240837