American Oversight Obtains Attorney General Sessions SF-86 Signature Page

American Oversight has obtained and released the page of Attorney General Sessions’s security clearance application on which he signed his name below a certification that a “knowing and willful false statement on this form can be punished by fine or imprisonment or both.”

American Oversight successfully sued the FBI to force the release of the page of Sessions’s SF-86 clearance application on which he failed to disclose his contacts with Russian government officials.  That document was released on July 13, confirming that Sessions had checked “no” in response to the question asking if he had any contacts with foreign government officials during the preceding seven years.

American Oversight has called for Sessions to resign over his false statements on his security clearance application. In response to questions about the SF-86, the Department of Justice stated that all of Sessions’s contacts with Russian officials had been in his official capacity as a Senator – not as a Trump campaign surrogate – and that he had been advised informally by the FBI that he did not need to list official Senate meetings on his clearance application.

A July 21 report by the Washington Post indicated that Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak had discussed “…matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration” – topics that would not fall under the category of official Senate business.

In addition to the foreign contacts question, American Oversight had also sought the release of the signature page to confirm that Sessions had personally attested to the accuracy of the information in his clearance application. The FBI initially declined to provide the signature page, but at a hearing on July 13, a federal judge instructed the government to release the page to American Oversight.