Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the idea that he colluded with Russian to interfere in the 2016  campaign a “detestable lie”, while clashed with Democratic lawmakers over his refusal to detail his conversations with President Donald Trump.

In the  2 hour 30 minutes heated exchange with Democrats at the Senate Intelligence Committee, they pushed and prodded him to recount conversations with Trump.

Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich, “You raised your right hand here today and said you would solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, now you’re not answering questions. You’re impeding this investigation.”

The AG refused to disclose whether he discussed fired FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the FBI’s Russia probe with Trump before the president terminated Comey. He also refused to say whether Trump had expressed any reservations about Sessions decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

The entire session with Sessions seemed to be back and forth because of the AG’s refusal to answer any of the questions with a direct answer, he also refused to answer if any Justice Department officials had discussed presidential pardons of the individuals being looked at in the Russian investigations.

“I believe the American people have had it with stonewalling. Americans don’t want to hear that answers to relevant questions are privileged”, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said.

“I am not stonewalling,” Sessions replied.

Sessions said he would not discuss confidential communications with the president as he was following Justice Department policy and Sessions said Trump had not invoked executive privilege regarding the conversations.Executive privilege is a power that can be claimed by a president or senior executive branch officials to withhold information from Congress or the courts to protect the executive branch decision-making process, Politico reports.

The committee’s Republican chairman, Richard Burr, asked Sessions to ask the White House if there were areas officials there would be comfortable with him answering and provide written answers if so.

The series of testimonies from that of the fired FBI Director James Comey, to that of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, are the latest in the unending drama that has been the 5-month-old Trump administration.

Itunuoluwa