Attorney General Jeff Sessions should not recuse himself from any investigation into Russia's interference with the 2016 election, Rep. Steve King said Thursday.
He explained that Sessions' answer to a question during a confirmation hearing about his own contacts with Russia's ambassador was answered in the context of the question.
The question posed to Sessions by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., was about what the then-senator's reaction would be when investigating members of Trump's campaign staff and their connections with Russians, the Iowa Republican told MSNBC, and was not about Sessions' meeting with Russia's ambassador in his capacity as a senator.
"Sen. Franken, everybody at that table in the Senate has had meetings with different members, representatives of multiple countries," King said. "Many of them, including Russia, so if there was any concern, any senator would have brought that up."
"I've had meetings with Russians and they weren't to do with this investigation," King said, insisting the controversy is politically motivated. "No one has more integrity in this entire government than Jeff Sessions."
King said he's traveled to Russia, including speaking to the successors of the KGB, and he does not think he has anything to hide about that.
"We talked about the Boston bombers and I reviewed the documents that they had sent to the FBI and measure the level of cooperation of Russian intelligence and U.S. intelligence," King said. "There's nothing about that I think I need to either hide or not admit it freely. I want to deliver that information so I know that so my constituents know that I'm doing my job."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.