Updated | Pressure rises on US Attorney General

Senior Republicans have called on US Attorney General to step aside from an FBI probe into alleged Russian interference in last year’s election.

US House majority leader Kevin McCarthy said it would be best if Sessions stepped aside from the investigation.

“For any investigation going forward you want to make sure everyone trusts the investigation,” he told MSNB.

Republican congressmen Jason Chaffetz, Darrell Issa and Tom Cole, as well as senator Rob Portman, have also called on Sessions to withdraw from the inquiry.

Sessions is under fire after revelations by the Washington Post that had two meetings with Russia’ ambassador during the election – despite telling his Senate confirmation hearing that he had “no communications with Russians”.

During the January hearing, Sessions was asked: “If there was any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government, in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”

He responded: “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians. And I’m unable to comment on it.”

However, it has now emerged that Sessions and Russia’s ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak held a private conversation in Sessions’ office in September and had spoken earlier in the summer at a meeting with several other ambassadors.

Sessions on Wednesday stressed he had "never met any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign".

He added he would recuse himself from the FBI investigation “whenever it is appropriate”, without providing further details.

The White House also backed him, condemning criticism of Sessions as the “latest attack against the Trump administration by partisan Democrats”.

Justice department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said there had been "absolutely nothing misleading about his answer".
"He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign - not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee," she said.

News of Sessions’ meeting with Kislyak broke just after a congressional committee agreed to an investigation into Russia’s alleged interference into the US election. The White House has denied any improper behaviour during the campaign, while Russia has consistently rejected allegations of interference.

A spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry dismissed the latest media reports as “the manifestation of some kind of media vandalism”. Meetings with US politicians were part of the Russian embassy’s “everyday business”, she told AP.