Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself from campaign investigations

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Thursday afternoon that he would recuse himself from "any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States."

This comes after revelations about his communications with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Sessions met with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before the presidential election last year, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Sessions said he did nothing wrong when he did not disclose during Senate testimony that he had met last year with Russia's ambassador.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been investigating the Russian hacks into last year's election. It was concluded that Russia was behind the hacked Democratic emails and subsequent leaks in an effort to help Trump.

Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the probes comes after top Democrats called for his resignation and several of his fellow Republicans in Congress called for his recusal earlier on Thursday.

(Reuters contributed to this report)