Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday it's too early to say if a special prosecutor is needed to investigate allegations of meetings between staffers with President Donald Trump's election campaign and Russians in the wake of revelations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had himself spoken twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
"I need to learn more about it beyond the media reports," Rubio told NPR's "Morning Edition" program. "I'd like to talk to the attorney general personally and I'm going to try to do that here in the next couple days.
"From what I read, it seems now now that one of the meetings was an incidental contact after an event at the convention. It really does not seem like a sit-down meeting in the capitol, which is not unusual, although perhaps it is so for the Russian ambassador."
The third point, said the Florida Republican, is to learn what was discussed in the meetings, and why Sessions did not disclose the meetings when Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked him about them during his Senate confirmation hearings.
"Obviously that is something that is important that needs to be addressed," said Rubio.
"It could potentially call into question whether or not the attorney general can do the job or whether an independent counsel would be necessary. We're not at that stage yet.
"But meanwhile, the investigation has just started, but if there are facts that show that there should be further action, at that time it would be time to determine if Sessions should recuse himself or if an independent counsel would be necessary.
"We're not at that stage yet," said Rubio. "These are valid issues but I would caution everyone: let's take this one step at a time. This is certainly a relevant story but I want to hear from him directly."
Depending on what's learned, he continued, it could be very well that Sessions, in the interest of fairness and his own best interest would ask someone else to step in.
"Again, we're not there yet, but we could be, and so we just need to start thinking about those things," said Rubio.
In addition, he continued, ambassadors do want to get closer to government administrations and influence people who are close to them, but that's separate from the nation that Russia was participating in and interfering in the 2016 elections.
"The problem is that this is in regard to Russia and it regards their potential interference, or what I believe is their actual interference, in our election process," said Rubio. "It is concerning, but I want to make sure we're fair about this but also that we are clear that we are transparent.
"The American people deserve to know everything. I'm not interested in being part of a witch hunt but I also will not be a part of a cover-up."