US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has requested that his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee be open to the public.

"The Attorney General has requested that this hearing be public. He believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement on Monday. 

The Attorney General “looks forward to answering the committee's questions tomorrow", the statement continued. 

Sessions is expected to be grilled by the Senate committee on Tuesday over alleged contacts with Russian officials during the US presidential campaign.

The Attorney General, who was one of the first high-profile supporters of Trump's election campaign, agreed on Saturday to appear before the Senate committee.

The committee is investigating the alleged Russian role in the US presidential election.

Sessions' testimony comes days after former FBI director James Comey told the Senate intelligence Committee that Trump had tried to block a probe into ties between Moscow and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey told lawmakers that he knew details that made Attorney General Sessions's involvement in the bureau's probe "problematic." 

“We were aware of facts I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued involvement in a Russia investigation problematic,” Comey said at the hearing.

Comey reportedly told lawmakers behind closed doors that one of those "facts" included another unreported meeting with the Russian ambassador.

Sessions said the reason why he accepted the committee's invitation was due in part to Comey's testimony, publicly accusing the president of seeking to stop the Russian probe.

Comey said the president urged him to drop the investigation into Flynn, who resigned earlier this year over his contacts with Russian diplomats.