Declassified Documents Reveal FBI Opened Probe into Jeff Sessions for Alleged Perjury Despite Updated Testimony

Newly declassified FBI investigative files show that the bureau opened a formal probe into then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May 2017 over potential false statements to Congress about contacts with Russian officials, even though Sessions had already submitted clarifying testimony weeks earlier.

The investigation, codenamed MARCH TOLL, was opened on May 10, 2017—one day after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. According to the documents released by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, the primary predicate for the case was a March 20, 2017, letter from Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Al Franken of Minnesota to Comey. The senators accused Sessions of lacking candor and potentially committing perjury based on his January 2017 Senate confirmation hearing testimony, in which he stated he “did not have communications with the Russians.”

Sessions had already addressed the issue. On March 6, 2017, he sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee clarifying that his original testimony was truthful as it referred to the absence of any continuing exchange of information with Russian officials during the Trump campaign. He explained that he did not view prior routine contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak—conducted in his capacity as a U.S. senator—as the type of communication the questions sought. Those contacts included meetings reported in the media that later became public.

The declassified files indicate the FBI’s Washington Field Office opened the matter at headquarters’ direction. Comey had notified then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on April 28 that the case would be initiated. Media reports from outlets including the Huffington Post and The National Interest, which discussed possible additional interactions involving Kislyak at a 2016 foreign policy event, were also referenced in the opening materials. Sessions’ supplementary testimony was added to the investigative file on May 23.

The probe continued for nearly a year. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team interviewed Sessions as part of its broader Russia investigation. By March 2018, Mueller’s office determined it would not pursue the false statements or perjury allegations. The FBI formally closed MARCH TOLL on May 8, 2018, with the concurrence of the special counsel’s office. Mueller’s final report later concluded that Sessions had not been willfully untruthful in his testimony.

The documents form part of a larger set of materials declassified under the current Trump administration examining FBI counterintelligence and related activities from the 2016–2017 period, including Crossfire Hurricane and other probes involving Trump campaign associates. Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation early in his tenure as attorney general.

At the time, the Sessions matter unfolded amid intense scrutiny of alleged Trump-Russia ties, much of which subsequent reviews, including the Durham report, found lacked sufficient predication or was mishandled. No charges were ever brought against Sessions arising from the MARCH TOLL investigation. The newly public files provide the most detailed official account to date of how the case was initiated, its limited evidentiary basis, and its eventual closure.