Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not required to disclose foreign contacts on his security clearance application unless he "developed personal relationships" with them, the FBI told one of his assistants last March in an email, according to a report on CNN.
The email, released by the FBI through a Freedom of Information Act request to a group called Right Wing Watch, said Sessions did the right thing in omitting names on the form where it asked if he had had contact with foreign governments in the previous seven years, including embassy officials.
"For the purposes of the SF-86, he was not required to list foreign government contacts while on official government business unless he developed personal relationships from such contacts," the FBI official said in the email sent to Sessions aide Peggi Hanrahan.
Sessions, who was confirmed as AG in early February, only disclosed a meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak after the Senate hearings.
Sessions has been questioned by the Senate and House regarding what he knew about the Trump campaign's interactions with Russians and has repeatedly denied having any communications with Russians or knowledge of any campaign contact with Russians.
But in November during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, he acknowledged he attended a meeting with George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser who pleaded guilty last month to lying to the FBI.
"Sessions has repeatedly denied that he talked about the campaign with the Russian, but critics have continued to question his decision to not list them on his SF-86, which contains a box to check for contacts," Paul Bedard wrote at the Washington Examiner. "The email confirms statements from Justice staffers that Sessions did not need to check the foreign contacts box."
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