WASHINGTON — Democratic senators plan to press Attorney General Jeff Sessions about his private communications with the president when he appears before a Senate committee Wednesday to discuss his leadership of the Justice Department.
The routine oversight hearing is Sessions' first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since his January confirmation, and it comes as has worked quickly to reshape the department with an intense focus on immigration, drugs, gangs and violent crime. He will likely face questions from lawmakers about his swift undoing of Obama-era protections for gay and transgender people and his rollback of criminal justice policies that aimed to reduce the federal prison population, among other changes he has made in nine months since taking office.
He has tried to pressure so-called sanctuary cities into cooperating with federal immigration authorities by threatening to withhold grant money, and he was the public face of the Trump administration's decision to end a program benefiting hundreds of thousands of young people who entered the U.S. illegally as children. Senators could question him about that, as Congress seeks a legislative solution to extend the protections before recipients' work permits expire.

But lawmakers are also expected to ask him about the investigation into Trump campaign connections to Russia, which continues to cast a shadow over his tenure. Sessions recused himself from that probe, a decision that still frustrates President Donald Trump, who subjected him to a solid week of blistering public criticism this summer. (AP)