“I had no recollection of this meeting until I saw these news reports,” Mr. Sessions said.

Mr. Sessions testified Tuesday that was still hazy on the details about what Mr. Papadopoulos had proposed.

But on one matter, he said his memory is clear: he said he shot down Mr. Papadopoulos’ idea of a Trump-Putin meet-up. And he said he told Mr. Papadopoulos that he was not authorized to represent the campaign in such discussions.

Mr. Sessions is in the hot seat over Russia — again.

Mr. Sessions has twice told lawmakers under oath that as a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, he did not communicate with Russians to aid Mr. Trump’s candidacy, nor did he know of other members of the campaign who had.

His challenge on Tuesday will be to try to square those comments with recent revelations that at least one member of the campaign’s foreign policy council, which Mr. Sessions led, and another foreign policy adviser, had informed Mr. Sessions about their discussions with Russians at the time.

Mr. Sessions has already had his statements undercut once. After telling senators at his confirmation hearing in January that he had not had any contacts with Russians, it was revealed that Mr. Sessions held multiple meetings with a Russian ambassador during the campaign.

Now, Mr. Sessions must contend with comments he made last month, in another hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I did not, and I’m not aware of anyone else that did,” Mr. Sessions told senators when asked whether he believed members of the campaign had communicated with Russians.

Democrats on the committee put Mr. Sessions on alert in a letter last week, saying that they would want clarification on “inconsistencies” between those statements and those of the two campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, who have acknowledged having contact with Russians.

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“Under oath, knowing in advance that he would be asked about this subject, the Attorney General gave answers that were, at best, incomplete,” said Representative John Conyers, the top Democrat on the panel. “I hope the Attorney General can provide some clarification on this problem in his remarks today.”

The White House will have its eye on his performance.

The White House will be carefully watching Mr. Sessions’s performance. The attorney general has been in hot water with the president since he decided in March to recuse himself from all matters related to Russia, leaving him without control over the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian efforts to meddle in the election.

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Representative Robert Goodlatte, the committee’s Republican chairman, appeared to pile on when he said, “While I understand your decision to recuse yourself was an effort by you to do the right thing, I believe you, as a person of integrity, would have been impartial and fair in following the facts wherever they led.”

Any hiccups in Mr. Sessions’s testimony would most likely only make his problems at the White House worse.

Mr. Sessions will have to mind the partisan divide.

The House Judiciary Committee has a reputation as one of the most politically divided in Congress — and those differences are likely to be on plain display on Tuesday as both Republicans and Democrats wrestle with the sharp changes in policy at the Justice Department instituted under Mr. Sessions.

Republicans mostly approve of those changes.

“Under your leadership, the Justice Department has taken strides to mitigate the harms done in the prior Administration,” Mr. Goodlatte said. “I implore you to work with us to continue that trend.”

But Democrats will probably grill Mr. Sessions on the effects of curtailing the Obama-era enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, especially protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Republicans, on the other hand, are almost certain to press Mr. Sessions on the progress of investigations into potential leaks of classified information, which have tripled under his watch, and into the handling of the Hillary Clinton email case by the Obama Justice Department.

Debating a second special counsel

Republicans will be pleased that Mr. Sessions is coming with good news. On Monday, the Justice Department notified the committee that senior prosecutors were looking into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the Obama administration’s decision to allow a Russian nuclear agency to buy Uranium One, a company that owned access to uranium in the United States. The department will also examine whether any donations to the Clinton Foundation were tied to the approval.

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Republicans are investigating the matter themselves but have been clamoring for the department to get involved. On Tuesday, Mr. Goodlatte signaled his support but said again that he wanted the department to go farther and appoint a second special counsel. He also urged Mr. Sessions to let a special counsel investigate the Clinton email case.

“There are significant concerns that the partisanship of the F.B.I. and the department has weakened the ability of each to act objectively,” he said.

Democrats were incensed by the letter, which they said they did not receive. Mr. Conyers said the appointment of a new special counsel was merely to “cater to the President’s political needs.” He argued that there was not sufficient evidence to do so. And, he said, it smacked of “a banana republic.”

Then again, Mr. Sessions’s days at the department could be numbered.

The race to fill Mr. Sessions’s former Senate seat in Alabama has fallen into turmoil in recent days after five women accused the Republican nominee of misconduct when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Despite mounting accusations and calls by fellow Republicans, including the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, to step aside, the candidate, Roy S. Moore, has remained defiant.

That’s where Mr. Sessions comes in.

Two White House officials floated on Monday a scenario under consideration that would have Mr. Sessions either run for his old seat as a write-in candidate to challenge Mr. Moore or be appointed to it should Mr. Moore win and be immediately removed from office. Mr. McConnell is said to be supportive of the idea.

Though a long shot, the move could provide Republicans with a convenient — if awkward — solution to two issues: the prospect of Mr. Moore in the Senate and Mr. Trump’s frustration with Mr. Sessions. While Mr. Sessions remains extremely popular in the state, his relationship with Mr. Trump never really recovered after the attorney general’s recusal.

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General Electric Co.’s new boss is dramatically reshaping the company and slashing the dividend as he looks to pull the manufacturing icon out of one of the deepest slumps in its 125-year history. The moves failed to win over investors.

Chief Executive Officer John Flannery plans to narrow GE’s focus around power, aviation and health-care equipment while exiting businesses such as lighting and locomotives that have defined the company for decades. He’s also trimming the size of the board, revising the compensation program and chopping the quarterly dividend in half — only the second cut since the Great Depression.

The sweeping changes announced Monday underscore the severity of the challenges facing the new CEO, who is grappling with a stock that has lost $100 billion in market value this year. Plagued by poor cash flow amid slumping markets in power generation and oil-field equipment, GE is by far the biggest loser on the Dow Jones Industrial Average this year.

“Whether investors will consider these actions sufficient to form a bottom for the stock remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that the plan outlined today marks a new era for GE,” Deane Dray, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “That said, does it go far enough?”

The shares dropped 3.8 percent to $19.71 at 10:12 a.m. in New York after plunging as much as 7.3 percent, the biggest intraday decline in two years. GE fell 35 percent this year through Nov. 10.

Flannery already has made changes to top management, sought deep cost cuts and welcomed a representative of activist investor Trian Fund Management to GE’s board. Over the next two years, GE will explore options to exit its majority stake in Baker Hughes, a provider of oil-field equipment and services. GE’s lighting business traces its origins to the company’s formation by Thomas Edison.

“The GE of the future is going to be a more focused industrial company,” Flannery, who took over in August from Jeffrey Immelt, said in a presentation. “Soon we’re going to be proud of the performance.”

Flannery, who previously ran GE’s unit manufacturing medical scanners and other health equipment, said last month that the company would divest at least $20 billion of businesses.

Lowered Forecast

The moves follow a broad portfolio reshaping in recent years as Immelt sold most of GE’s finance and consumer operations. Still, the latest steps will keep most of the current company intact and stop short of the full-scale breakup some analysts have recently called for.

Earnings next year will be $1 to $1.07 a share, GE said. That represents a significant decline from the $2 target that management has been discussing for several years. The new outlook is closer to analysts’ expectations, which were $1.18 on average before Monday’s announcement, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

The forecast became a point of contention this year as Immelt suggested in May that $2 a share would be tough to reach, a month after Trian, which has been one of GE’s largest shareholders since 2015, said it believed GE could exceed the target.

GE will shrink the size of its board to 12 from 18 directors amid criticism from some investors and analysts over the size. Of the remaining members, three will be new to the board, GE said.

Dividend Decision

The quarterly payout will drop 50 percent to 12 cents a share, the Boston-based company said in a statement Monday, in a move that will save about $4.2 billion a year. GE last reduced the dividend in 2009 as it struggled with fallout from the financial crisis.

“We understand the importance of this decision to our shareowners and we have not made it lightly,” Flannery said in the statement. “We are focused on driving total shareholder return and believe this is the right decision to align our dividend payout to cash flow generation.”

GE in October slashed its expectations for 2017 profit and cash flow as Flannery called the company’s performance “completely unacceptable.”

Investors have been bracing for a dividend cut as GE’s slide deepened in recent weeks. The payout had been recovering from a dramatic 68 percent cut in 2009, after Immelt for weeks had said the payout was safe. Immelt has called slashing the dividend “the worst day of my tenure as CEO.”

• The New York Times on Sunday published a detailed look
  at how the National Security Agency, the US’s largest and most
  secretive intelligence agency, had been deeply infiltrated over
  the past year.
• Expensive NSA cyberweapons are now for sale to hostile
  countries and have already been used in cyberattacks against
  the public.
• Now doubt surrounds the NSA, and experts wonder whether
  the agency can do its job at all.

---

Reuters

The National Security Agency, the US’s largest and most secretive
intelligence agency, has been deeply infiltrated by anonymous
hackers, as detailed in a New
York Times exposé published Sunday.

The NSA, which compiles massive troves of data on US citizens and
organizes cyberoffensives against the US’s enemies, was deeply
compromised by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, which has
made headlines in the past year in connection to the breach,
whose source remains unclear.

The group now posts cryptic, mocking messages pointed toward the
NSA as it sells the cyberweapons, created at huge cost to US
taxpayers, to any and all buyers, including US adversaries like
North Korea and Russia.

“It’s a disaster on multiple levels,” Jake Williams, a
cybersecurity expert who formerly worked on the NSA’s hacking
group, told The Times. “It’s embarrassing that the people
responsible for this have not been brought to justice.”

“These leaks have been incredibly damaging to our intelligence
and cybercapabilities,” Leon Panetta, the former director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, told The Times. “The fundamental
purpose of intelligence is to be able to effectively penetrate
our adversaries in order to gather vital intelligence. By its
very nature, that only works if secrecy is maintained and our
codes are protected.”

Furthermore, a wave of cybercrime has been linked to the release
of the NSA’s leaked cyberweapons.

Another NSA source who spoke with The Times described the attack
as being at least in part the NSA’s fault. The NSA has long
prioritized cyberoffense over securing its own systems, the
source said. As a result the US now essentially has to start over
on cyberinitiatives, Panetta said.

Read the full story at
The New York Times here.

Hundreds of people will gather in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday to worship with surviving members of a local church where a shooting rampage left more than two dozen people dead.

Members of the First Baptist Church will hold a church service for the first time since a gunman opened fire inside the small church a week earlier in the worst mass shooting in Texas history.

Initial plans called for gathering at a community center could house a few dozen people. But when organizers realized about 500 people were planning to attend, the service was moved outside to a baseball park.

Church representatives also plan to eventually open a public memorial inside the church, where 26 empty chairs have been placed. Authorities have put the official death toll at 26 victims because one of the 25 people killed was pregnant. Church officials have said the building will likely be demolished.

President Trump takes part in a bilateral meeting at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

In a string of tweets fired off Sunday morning from Hanoi, Vietnam, President Trump responded with sarcastic insults to a recent message from the North Korean government that had referred to him as “old.”

“Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?'” Trump wrote in his tweet, referring to the leader of North Korea’s ruling dynasty. “Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!”

Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old,” when I would NEVER call him “short and fat?” Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2017

The message marks an unusually personal escalation of the tensions between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang’s weapons program. It is also another sign of the change in rhetoric used to address North Korea since Trump took office: Though North Korea has long been known for hurling bellicose insults at world leaders, rarely have those world leaders responded in kind.

Of course, Trump is a not your average world leader. The current president is a pugnacious social media user often willing to respond with his own harsh words when he feels wronged. As a spokeswoman for his wife, Melania Trump, put it earlier this year, when Trump is attacked “he will punch back 10 times harder.”

[Trump says Putin sincere in denial of Russian meddling]

Whether this instinct to hit back could help his self-described efforts toward becoming Kim’s friend in the future — or harm them — is unclear.

The North Korean message that aggrieved Trump was released by the country’s foreign ministry on Saturday and described Trump’s 12-day tour of Asia as “a warmonger’s trip for confrontation with our country, trying to remove our self-defensive nuclear deterrent.” The statement also criticized the “reckless remarks by an old lunatic like Trump will never scare us or stop our advance.”

The North Korean government has insulted Trump personally numerous times. Its state-run media has run a number of unflattering descriptions of Trump, including the memorable use of the word “dotard” in September. It has frequently referred to Trump as “old” and accused him of being a “war maniac” and a “lunatic.”

[‘He said he didn’t meddle’: Trump talks with Putin about U.S. elections and Syria in brief interactions]

These insults come at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea has pushed ahead with its weapons program over the past few months, conducting a number of long-range missile tests, plus a nuclear bomb test, since Trump took office.

However, the insults also fit into a long tradition of insulting American leaders. In 2014, the U.S. government criticized a lengthy racist screed published by North Korea’s State-run Korean Central News Agency that had referred to President Barack Obama as a “dirty fellow,” among other things.

In recent years, North Korea has also insulted former secretaries of state John F. Kerry (“hideous lantern jaw”) and Hillary Clinton (both a “schoolgirl” and a “pensioner”), while the entire administration of President George W. Bush was referred to as “a bunch of tricksters and political imbeciles.” The Americans have not responded with their own public insults, though Bush did privately call Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, a “pygmy” in 2002 according to reports at the time.

Trump’s descriptions of North Korea’s current leader have varied, and he has even been positive at times —  describing him as a “pretty smart cookie” in April. But as tensions with North Korea have escalated, so too has the harshness of the American president’s rhetoric, with Trump dismissively referring to Kim as “little rocket man” and warning of “fire and fury” if North Korean threats continued — a statement which perhaps inadvertently echoed North Korean propaganda.

Some had worried that Trump would use similarly personal and angry language while in South Korea last week and run the risk of inciting the North. However, though his speech to South Korea’s National Assembly was deeply critical of North Korea, it was less bombastic and more measured than his previous statements.

That speech was drawn up carefully with the input of others in Trump’s administration. Trump, however, is a famously impulsive tweeter.

Worse still, for both sides the insults may pick on sensitive spots. Trump is the oldest first-term president in U.S. history and more than twice the age of the North Korean leader. Meanwhile, Kim’s height is estimated to be five-foot-seven, and he is rumored to suffer health problems due to his weight.

More on WorldViews

Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ statement echoes North Korea’s own threats

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Republicans are rushing to cut ties with Senate candidate Roy Moore (R-Ala.) as fears mount that the disturbing allegations against him will tarnish the party’s brand and imperil other GOP candidates running for office.

Moore has denied the bombshell allegations laid out in a Washington Post story, in which three women went on the record to claim that he courted them as teenagers while he was an attorney in his 30s. One woman claimed that Moore molested her when she was a 14-year-old girl.

Republicans are calling on Moore to drop out of the race even though the GOP wouldn’t be able to get another candidate on the ticket to run against Democrat Doug Jones before the Dec. 12 election. Moore says he will not drop out of the race and is still considered the favorite to win in deep red Alabama.

Nationally, Republicans are worried that Moore will be a drag on a party that already faces stiff electoral headwinds as they seek to keep a majority in the House in 2018.

For as long as he is in the race, and especially if he is elected, Democrats say they will tie the allegations against Moore and his past controversial remarks on race and gay marriage to all Republicans running for office.

Some Republicans are comparing the Moore problem to the one the party faced in 2012, when Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and Indiana treasurer Richard Mourdock made comments about rape during their Senate campaigns that dogged the party throughout the election cycle.

“We all saw what happened with Akin and Mourdock in 2012, where their comments caused issues for the entire party,” said Ryan Williams, a GOP operative and veteran of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign. “This is a bigger scandal that will force Republicans across the country to distance themselves from him. That will continue until he drops out. If he gets elected, then we have another problem.”

In the immediate aftermath of the revelations, many Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellMcConnell expects Paul to return to Senate next week Former Hill staff calls for mandatory harassment training Gaming the odds of any GOP tax bill getting signed into law MORE (R-Ky.), declared that Moore should exit the race if the allegations against him are true.

It quickly became clear that that response would not be sufficient and that Republicans would remain vulnerable to Moore doing reputational damage to their party until they rejected him entirely.

“Hiding behind “if true” is a disgraceful and gutless response to the serious reports of Roy Moore’s sexual assaults,” said Allison Teixeira Sulier, the spokesperson for the liberal opposition research group American Bridge. “Republicans are showing their true colors once again by enabling a sexual predator in the name of partisan politics and it’s disgusting to watch. Voters are going to hold the entire party accountable.”

By Friday, the urgency to rid the party of Moore’s presence intensified, with establishment Republicans like 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romey and Sen. John McCainJohn Sidney McCainGOP rushes to cut ties to Moore GOP strategist: ‘There needs to be a repudiation’ of Roy Moore by Republicans World leaders reach agreement on trade deal without United States: report MORE (R-Az.) saying unequivocally that he needs to drop out of the race.

“This cannot be who we are,” tweeted Sen. Jeff FlakeJeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeGOP rushes to cut ties to Moore Flake on Moore defenders: ‘This cannot be who we are’ GOP senators raise concerns over tax plan MORE (R-Az.), a first-term senator who has been vocal about his misgivings with the direction the party is headed in the age of President Trump.

Rep. Adam KinzingerAdam Daniel KinzingerGOP rushes to cut ties to Moore GOP lawmaker: Senate should expel Moore if he wins Moore defends himself as pressure mounts MORE (R-Ill.) suggested in a Friday interview on CNN that the Senate could expel Moore if he wins the elections. That would require a two-thirds vote in the upper chamber.

Republicans running in Democratic or swing-districts, like Reps. Barbara ComstockBarbara Jean ComstockWilson endorses Foxx as next House Education chairman House transfers DC Metro board appointments to DOT Dems target DC-area GOP rep on Metro funding MORE (R-Va.) and Carlos CurbeloCarlos Luis CurbeloBipartisan duo offer criminal justice reform legislation Live coverage: Day two of the Ways and Means GOP tax bill markup Trump administration cancels immigration benefits for 5K people MORE (R-Fla.), condemned Moore and demanded he drop out of the race.

“This man is despicable and should step down,” Curbelo tweeted.

Comstock faces reelection in a district Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonGOP rushes to cut ties to Moore Papadopoulos was in regular contact with Stephen Miller, helped edit Trump speech: report Bannon jokes Clinton got her ‘ass kicked’ in 2016 election MORE carried by 10 points and in a state where Democrats won sweeping electoral victories from the governor’s mansion down on Tuesday. Clinton carried Curbelo’s district by 16 points and the Florida Republican is a perennial target for Democrats.

In a Friday interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show, Moore called the allegations “completely false and misleading.”

He denied ever coming into contact with the 14-year-old girl. Moore did not deny dating girls that were under 18 – which is legal in Alabama – but said he does not remember “specific dates” and that being romantically involved with a teenager while he was in his 30s would be “out of my customary behavior.” 

Moore has his defenders, who have called into question why the women in the story would remain silent for decades and only tell their stories weeks before the election.

Breitbart News chairman Stephen Bannon, who backed Moore in the primary against Sen. Luther StrangeLuther Johnson StrangeGOP rushes to cut ties to Moore Cruz’s Democratic challenger fundraises off support of Roy Moore Moore digs in amid mounting GOP criticism MORE (R-Ala.), blamed the media. Bannon and his allies believe the controversy will pass, noting that Trump won the presidential election despite Republicans abandoning him in the wake of the “Hollywood Access” tape that caught him making lewd remarks about grabbing women.

“’The Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpDems win from coast to coast Falwell after Gillespie loss: ‘DC should annex’ Northern Virginia Dems see gains in Virginia’s House of Delegates MORE, is the same Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore,” he told an audience in New Hampshire on Thursday night. “Now is that a coincidence? That’s what I mean when I say [the media is the] opposition party, right? It’s purely part of the apparatus of the Democratic Party. They don’t make any bones about it.”

In Alabama, state and local officials are firing back at what they view as elite media and Washington politicians in a frenzy to take down one of their own. 

“[Alabamians] don’t take kindly to people from outside our state coming down here and telling us what we should do,” said Alabama Republican strategist Jonathan Gray.

But national Republicans are worried about the consequences of Moore staying in the race and potentially getting elected.

One former high-level GOP aide said Moore would “absolutely” hurt the party’s brand and that he was certain to be used in Democratic attack ads against Republican candidates.

A Harvard-Harris survey released last month found the GOP’s approval rating is at an all-time low of 29 percent, while Democrats are at 39.

“That could be a floor [for Republicans] given the current hyper-partisan environment,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

Republicans don’t want to find out how much lower they can go.

“I felt like in 2012, Republicans were afraid to say Akin was [wrong]. We’re in this era now where I think a lot of Republicans are willing to say it now,” said a national Republican strategist.

“I’m worried, but this is an opportunity to show a majority of Americans that the Republican Party does not stand for pedophilia and all these bigoted comments that he stands for.”

Ben Kamisar and Lisa Hagen contributed