Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that former FBI Director James Comey's meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office was "not problematic."
"We were there," Sessions told the Senate Intelligence Committee of the Feb. 14 meeting. "I was standing there."
Besides he and Comey, others present for the intelligence briefing on national security included White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
"Without repeating any conversation that took place, what I do recall is I did depart and everybody else did depart and Director Comey was sitting in front of the president's desk — and they were talking.
"I believe it was the next day that he said something and expressed concern about being left alone with the president, but that in itself is not problematic," Sessions said.
Comey told the committee in his public testimony last week that he "implored" Sessions to make sure he was never left alone again with the president — but that Sessions did not respond.
Trump had pressured Comey to drop the FBI probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn's alleged Moscow ties.
Sessions told senators Tuesday that when Comey approached him about the Oval Office meeting, "he did not tell me at that time any details about anything that was said that was improper.
"I affirmed his concern that we should be following the proper guidelines of the Department of Justice.
"I basically backed him up in his concerns — and that was that he should not carry on any conversation with the president or anyone else about an investigation in a way that was not proper."
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