Gov. John Hickenlooper said Thursday he wants to know whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions broke any laws before deciding if the former Republican senator should do more than simply recuse himself from an investigation into allegations of Russian tampering with the 2016 election.

“I’m not sure if recusal is sufficient,” Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said in a statement. “It may be an appropriate first step, but we need to see the results of the investigation. The Attorney General’s #1 priority is to uphold the laws of the land. If the investigation finds that a law was broken, a different response may be called for.”

A spokeswoman for Hickenlooper said the governor was referring to potential perjury Sessions might have committed during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Jan. 10, the cabinet nominee denied under oath that he’d had “communications with the Russians” after a Democratic senator asked if anyone “affiliated with the Trump campaign” had communicated with the Russian government during the presidential campaign.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that Sessions and the Russian ambassador had met twice during the campaign, although a Sessions spokeswoman said he’d been telling the truth in his testimony because he met the Russian official as a senator, not as a Trump campaign advisor.

Sessions formally recused himself Thursday afternoon from participating in any federal investigation involving the 2016 presidential campaigns and election amid mounting calls from congressional Democrats that he resign.

President Donald Trump stood by Sessions in a statement issued Thursday night, calling him an “honest man” who “could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional.”

Trump said the attacks on his attorney general demonstrated that the Democrats “have lost their grip on reality” because they lost an election they’d expected to win, calling the controversy “a total witch hunt!”

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com