Tuesday, May 29, 2018

WOW Jeff Sessions Has Thrown Trump Under the Bus

Jeff Sessions

The very weird attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has thrown President Trump under the bus with greater force than was known up to now.

The New York Times is reporting:
By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been receiving the presidential silent treatment for two days. Mr. Sessions had flown to Florida because Mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban.

When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.

Mr. Sessions refused.

The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president’s public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general.

The special counsel’s interest demonstrates Mr. Sessions’s overlooked role as a key witness in the investigation into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. It also suggests that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be — encompassing not only the president’s interactions with and firing of the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, but also his relationship with Mr. Sessions.
Rudy Giuliani's response to this NYT report is correct,  “‘Unrecuse’ doesn’t say, ‘Bury the investigation.’ It says on the face of it: Take responsibility for it and handle it correctly,”  but Mueller, with apparently the help of Sessions, is going to attempt to spin it as obstruction by Trump.

There is nothing here but, is in time we upgrade the ham sandwich analogy: Congress can impeach a ham sandwich if it has the desire?

  -RW  

6 comments:

  1. Why Trump didn't fire Jeff Sessions long ago is a mystery. Does Trump not have the authority to fire Jeff Sessions?

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    1. Exactly the question I have. Doesn't the AG serve at the pleasure of the President, just like every other cabinet-level officer?

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    2. John Bolton now runs foreign policy, perhaps he's taken over the domestic agenda as well.

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    3. My best guess is blackmail. Fire me and I'll ruin you type of swamp-level stuff. We all knew Sessions was a creature from the black lagoon. It seems obvious he was Mueller's boy all along.

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  2. Can we have them fight to the death?

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  3. Political ability and the will to fire Sessions is differemt from the legal ability. Trump is a responder not a cause of action here. Trump won't test the political hypothesis that he "can't" and "shouldn't". He probably will cook slowly rather than flame out overtly. And Pence might get 10 years... as president? We will see.

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