SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Senator Cornyn has made the point that the whole substance of your recommendation to the president to dismiss Director Comey was his unprofessional conduct with respect to the Clinton administration, is that correct?
JEFF SESSIONS: I supported everything that the deputy attorney general put in his memoranda as good and important factors to use in determining whether or not he had conducted himself in a way that justified continuing in office. I think it pretty well speaks for itself, and I believe most of it did deal with that. The discussion about his performance was a bipartisan discussion. It began during the election time. Democrats were very unhappy about the way he conducted himself and in retrospect, in looking at it, I think it was more egregious than I may have even understood at the time --
REED: General, if I may, and I don't want to cut you off.
SESSIONS: OK I'll let you go. I'm sorry.
REED: Excuse me, sir, but on July 7th when Mr. Comey made his first announcement about the case, you were on Fox News, and you said, first of all, Director Comey is “a skilled former prosecutor” and then you concluded by saying essentially that “it's not his problem. It's Hillary Clinton's problem.” Then in November, on November 6th, after Mr. Comey again made news in late October by reopening, if you will, the investigation, you said, again, on Fox News, “you know, FBI Director Comey did the right thing when he found new evidence. He had no choice but to report it to the American Congress where he had under oath testified. The investigation was over, he had to correct that and say, 'this investigation is ongoing now.' I'm sure it's significant or else he wouldn't have announced that.” So in July and November, Director Comey was doing exactly the right thing. You had no criticism of him. You felt that in fact, he was a skilled professional prosecutor. You felt that his last statement in October was fully justified so how can you go from those statements to agreeing with Mr. Rosenstein and then asking the president or recommending he be fired?
