Newly declassified documents show the FBI opened a criminal probe into then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May 2017 for potential false statements to Congress about Russian contacts, even though Sessions had already sent a letter clarifying his earlier testimony weeks earlier.
The investigation, codenamed MARCH TOLL, was opened one day after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. According to the FBI’s opening memo, the case was first opened at the Washington Field Office at the direction of headquarters and was solely predicated on a March 20, 2017 letter from Democrat Senators Patrick Leahy and Al Franken. The file also notes that Comey had notified then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on April 28 that the case would be opened.
The senators claimed Sessions may have committed perjury during his confirmation hearing when he said he “did not have communications with the Russians.”
Sessions had already sent a March 6 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee clarifying that he met the Russian ambassador twice during the campaign season but maintained his answer was truthful because the question focused on a continuing exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The FBI did not act on the Democrats’ letter until the day after Comey’s firing and did not even add Sessions’ supplementary testimony to the file until May 23.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team later closed the investigation in 2018, concluding it could not prove Sessions was “willfully untruthful.”
