Washington, Jun 14 (IANS): Democratic senators on Tuesday were left infuriated as Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeatedly thwarted their efforts to shed light on the firing of former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey.

In a fiery Senate intelligence committee hearing, Sessions raised his voice in indignation as he rejected claims that he had colluded with Russian officials during the 2016 election as an "appalling and detestable lie."

According to CNN, he repeatedly declined to go into his private conversations with President Donald Trump -- frustrating Democrats who accused him of "stonewalling" to shield the administration.

The Attorney General tried to escape the hearing without major political damage. He also provided resistance that may offer a boost to a crisis-weary White House that has been unable to shrug off the dark cloud over the Russia investigation.

Sessions said he did not hold an undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a speech by then-candidate Trump at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington last year.

Sessions also defended his decision to participate in the firing of Comey.

"I recused myself from any investigation into the campaign for president, but I did not recuse myself from defending my honour against scurrilous and false allegations," he said.

But the attorney general left Democratic senators deeply frustrated when he declined to go into the reasons for Comey's dismissal and would not say whether the President ordered him out of the Oval Office so he could talk privately with Comey on February 14, in an encounter the former FBI director said included a request for him to go easy on former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the report pointed out.