CHAPTER 1 INTERROGATION In January 2017 Kamala Harris joined the US Senate She was one of 15 senators on the Select Committee on Intelligence This group oversees the agencies that gather information for the US government That June the committee held a hearing Harris and the other senators questioned Attorney General Jeff Sessions As attorney general Sessions served as the head lawyer for the US government Kamala Harris was sworn in to the US Senate on January 3 2017 5
Sessions was also one of President Donald Trump’s earliest supporters He advised Trump’s election campaign In July 2016 the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI began looking into Trump’s campaign The FBI thought campaign officials might have been in contact with the Russian government The FBI feared the two groups were working together to sway the election After Trump won in November 2016 this fear grew In January 2017 Sessions said he had no contact with Russia during the campaign He made this statement under oath But in March news spread that Sessions had met with a Russian official twice In the June hearing the committee wanted answers Each senator had only five minutes to question Sessions Harris focused her time on one issue 6
Harris questions Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a hearing in June 2017 She wanted notes from Sessions’s meetings with the Russian official Sessions struggled to answer Harris’s questions He said her quick questions made him nervous But Harris was a former prosecutor She did not back down She pressed Sessions for the full five minutes Afterward the hearing received a lot of news attention Harris had served in the Senate for only six months But she was already seen as a rising political star 7
