On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor,” George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley argued that there is no perjury case against Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and that because there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump team and the Russians, calls for a special counsel are “getting ahead of your skis on this.”
Turley stated that not only did Sessions not commit perjury, it isn’t even close. Turley continued that Sessions was asked a “fairly convoluted” question that he answered. Turley granted that while the answer was “inartful.” And Sessions should have corrected his testimony, “that’s not perjury.”
The discussion then turned into calls for a special counsel. Turley stated that in order to have a special counsel, you have to “articulate what it is that they’re investigating.”
He added, “[T]he problem is that we don’t have any evidence of collusion. But, even if you go to say that maybe there was collusion, the question is, what’s the crime? It’s not a Logan Act violation of interfering with foreign relations. … We haven’t had any allegations of money being exchanged from the Russians. So — and so, the question is, what is the special counsel going to investigate? Is he going to come in and say, yep, we were hacked by the Russians, much like we’ve hacked other countries? Is he going to investigate some nameless guy in St. Petersburg? You usually have to articulate some type of criminal act, and that hasn’t happened yet. Now, maybe evidence will come forward, but until it does, you’re getting ahead of your skis on this.”
Turley concluded, “The White House has not exactly been performing as well as it should. It’s been sort of three beats behind. For example, in the Sessions case, there should have been a clarifying letter that was sent, and this would have been a total non-issue. He should have recused himself.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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