Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have recused himself from all investigations of President Donald Trump's ties to Russia, but that doesn't mean the fallout from this emerging scandal is going away anytime soon. This is despite Trump's unsurprising decision to take to Twitter on Thursday night in defense of his Attorney General.
Jared Kushner, a son-in-law of the president, joined Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, in a meeting at Trump Tower with Sergey Kislyak, a Russian ambassador, in December, according to The New York Times. This meeting had not been previously disclosed, even though Flynn's communications with Kislyak over President Barack Obama's sanctions led to Flynn's resignation, while his meeting with Jeff Sessions has resulted in the attorney general's current predicament.
Despite the growing concerns about Trump's connections to Russia, the House Intelligence Committee's most powerful Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, has reported that James Comey, the FBI director, is refusing to disclose the extent of his bureau's investigation into the matter.
"I would say at this point we know less than a fraction of what the FBI knows," Schiff told reporters on Thursday. "I appreciate we had a long briefing and testimony from the director today, but in order for us to do our investigation in a thorough and credible way, we’re gonna need the FBI to fully cooperate, to be willing to tell us the length and breadth of any counterintelligence investigations they are conducting. At this point, the director was not willing to do that."
By contrast, House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy, R- S.C., has claimed that the main problem is the leaks that have been causing the Trump administration such embarrassment.
"We cannot overlook the fact that the methodology of the collection and the content of that transcript never should have made into the public domain," Gowdy told MSNBC. "And people may like that it did today because it hurts Republicans, but what it really does is it hurts our country because you are leaking classified information."
Team Trump has denied any communications between its campaign officials and Russia on at least 20 occasions.
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