Last June, Attorney General Loretta Lynch met on an airport tarmac with former President Bill Clinton. Republicans had a conniption fit because the two might have talked about an investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices.

Now we discover that the new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, met twice last year with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while the then-U.S. senator headed the Donald Trump presidential campaign's foreign policy committee. During his confirmation hearings, Sessions gave false testimony about the meetings. Where is Republicans' outrage now?

Late Thursday, Sessions announced he'd recuse himself from any Justice Department investigations involving the presidential campaign. Recusal is good. Resignation would be better.

Sessions may well have perjured himself. The Alabama Republican told a Senate committee that he "did not have communications with the Russians" during the campaign. Lying under oath to a congressional committee is a felony punishable by a fine and up to five years in prison.

Asked Wednesday if he'd discussed the campaign with Kislyak, Sessions said, "I don't recall." Asked about his specific denial during the hearing of contact with the Russians, he said his answer had been "honest and correct as I understood it at the time."

That's weasel language.

The rule of law is the glory of U.S. government, as Sessions himself has said. It's what separates us from autocracies like Russia, which is run by a former Soviet KGB agent. Vladimir Putin sent Kislyak, whom U.S. intelligence agents have identified as a top espionage agent, to serve as his ambassador to the United States. If Kislyak wanted to chat with Sessions, it wasn't to talk Alabama football.

It was Kislyak who held secret talks in December with Gen. Michael T. Flynn after Trump had designated him as his national security adviser. Flynn denied having had those conversations, but U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring Kislyak's communications. Trump fired him for lying.

If Flynn had to go, then so does Sessions.

The U.S. intelligence community has reached consensus that Russia tampered with last year's election with an eye to helping Trump. The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that Putin was directly involved.

Trump has complained that the spy agencies are trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his election. Last week, CNN reported that the White House had asked the FBI to repudiate reports that Trump staffers had regular contact with Russian agents. The FBI refused.

With great reluctance, congressional intelligence committees have begun investigating the Russia connection, which is a national security matter that must be detached from politics.

That there was regular contact with Trump emissaries is now beyond doubt. That's suspicious. The key question is whether there was collusion. That would be criminal.

Trump should fire Sessions and support the appointment of an independent prosecutor. Whatever their politics, Americans should demand it.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST LOUIS POST DISPATCH