--- title: Jeff Sessions Hired His Own Private Lawyer description: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has retained his own private lawyer, D.C. litigator Charles Cooper, amid the Russia investigation. canonical: https://time.com/4826010/jeff-sessions-charles-cooper-attorney-russia-investigation/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-20T23:04:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:14:31.928Z article:section: Politics og:title: Attorney General Jeff Sessions Hired His Own Private Lawyer og:description: The Attorney General has retained his own attorney og:url: https://time.com/4826010/jeff-sessions-charles-cooper-attorney-russia-investigation/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3b4c786ab8d6148/6988d1780a4a22366e9ce984/jeff-sessions-senate-testimony.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Attorney General Jeff Sessions Testifies Before Senate Intelligence Committee og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Attorney General Jeff Sessions Hired His Own Private Lawyer twitter:description: The Attorney General has retained his own attorney twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3b4c786ab8d6148/6988d1780a4a22366e9ce984/jeff-sessions-senate-testimony.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Attorney General Jeff Sessions Hired His Own Private Lawyer  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jun 20, 2017 11:04 PM UTC  U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill June 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill June 13, 2017 in Washington, DC.Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jun 20, 2017 11:04 PM UTC [Attorney General Jeff Sessions](http://time.com/4817199/jeff-sessions-testimony-russia-investigation-briefing/) has retained his own private lawyer, D.C. litigator Charles Cooper. Cooper has been providing counsel for Sessions, and helped him with preparation for his June 13 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to the Associated Press. The attorney is a founding member and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, a law firm in Washington D.C., according to the [firm’s website.](http://www.cooperkirk.com/lawyers/charles-j-cooper/) He clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist before joining Justice Department during the Reagan administration in 1981\. In 1985, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the office of legal counsel. Cooper worked for the Reagan administration until 1988, when he went into private practice. In 2013, he defended Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, before the Supreme Court. Both Cooper and the Department of Justice did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Sessions joins other high-ranking members of the Trump administration in retaining their own lawyers as special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to investigate claims of collusion between Russia and Trump associates during the 2016 campaign. Both President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice President Mike Pence have hired personal lawyers. Sessions vehemently denied any claims of collusion or improper meetings when he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own Russia investigation. The [Washington _Post_ reported March 1 ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-spoke-twice-with-russian-ambassador-during-trumps-presidential-campaign-justice-officials-say/2017/03/01/77205eda-feac-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f%5Fstory.html?amp;utm%5Fterm=.19d6ad32ae65&hpid=hp%5Frhp-top-table-main%5Fno-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm%5Fterm=.952df534d18d)that Sessions spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice in 2016, and did not disclose these encounters when he was asked about them during his confirmation hearing. The day after the _Post_ report, Sessions [recused himself ](http://time.com/4689524/jeff-sessions-recuse-russia-trump-transcript/?iid=sr-link2)from overseeing the Russia investigation, although he said it was because of his role as a campaign surrogate rather than these meetings. The job now falls to his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4826010/jeff-sessions-charles-cooper-attorney-russia-investigation/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4826010/jeff-sessions-charles-cooper-attorney-russia-investigation/"},"headline":"Attorney General Jeff Sessions Hired His Own Private Lawyer","datePublished":"2017-06-20T23:04:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:14:31.928Z","description":"The Attorney General has retained his own attorney","url":"https://time.com/4826010/jeff-sessions-charles-cooper-attorney-russia-investigation/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3b4c786ab8d6148/6988d1780a4a22366e9ce984/jeff-sessions-senate-testimony.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3b4c786ab8d6148/6988d1780a4a22366e9ce984/jeff-sessions-senate-testimony.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Attorney General Jeff Sessions Testifies Before Senate Intelligence Committee","caption":"Attorney General Jeff Sessions Testifies Before Senate Intelligence Committee","creditText":"Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4826010/jeff-sessions-charles-cooper-attorney-russia-investigation/","name":"Attorney General Jeff Sessions Hired His Own Private Lawyer"}}]}] ```