President Trump Appears To Confirm Leaks About Jeff Sessions' Russian Contacts

WASHINGTON, DC —President Trump appeared Saturday to confirm a recent Washington Post report that found Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed the campaign in two meetings with the Russian ambassador during the election. In a tweet, Trump continued a trend of condemning the leakers themselves, rather than the subject of the leaks.

"A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post,this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions," he wrote. "These illegal leaks, like Comey's, must stop!"

Trump's tweet referred to Friday's story in the Post, which reported that intelligence intercepts recorded Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak telling his superiors that he had discussed the Trump campaign with Sessions on two occasions. The revelation that Sessions had met with Kislyak during the campaign led the attorney general to recuse himself from the Russia investigation in March, which indirectly caused the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Sessions, under oath, had denied meeting with Russians at all during the campaign in his Senate hearing for the attorney general role.

In his statement announcing his recusal, Sessions said that he met with Kislyak in his capacity as a senator and did not discuss the Trump campaign. While the newest report about Kislyak's conversations suggest Sessions' misled the public about the nature of their discussions, the reporters note that Kislyak may have lied to his Russian contacts.

However, Trump's tweet would seem to confirm that the Post's sources gave an accurate account of the intelligence community's findings. If, as Trump says, these reports are "illegal," then they must reveal genuine findings of the nation's spy agencies, because there's not reason to think "fake" intel reports would be classified.

On the other hand, Trump also accused former FBI Director of "illegal leaks" in the tweet, even though there's no evidence that the information James Comey gave to the press was classified. So it may be that Trump is not clear on what "illegally leaking" entails, or he may be using the words imprecisely.

Earlier in the week, the president told the New York Times that he wouldn't have appointed Sessions as attorney general had Trump known he would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

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