- The racist that Trump appointed as Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, lied at his confirmation hearing when he was asked and said that he had no contact with Russia but he did a couple of times during Trump’s campaign, that’s perjury. He was being asked to resign by some, more than 130, in the Congress and the Senate, he just ended up recusing himself from any investigations into Trump’s campaign. Sessions offered to resign at one point in recent months after his relationship with Trump grew increasingly tense, according to two people close to the White House. The strain between the two began after Sessions recused himself in March from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Sessions announced his recusal shortly after he became attorney general and a day after The Washington Post revealed that he had twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and did not disclose that fact to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his January confirmation hearing. Trump learned of the attorney general’s decision shortly before Sessions announced it at a news conference. Trump’s anger has lingered for months, according to the people close to the White House. They said that Trump cites Sessions’s recusal as a factor that prompted the decision last month by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to oversee the expanding Russian investigation. Before his recusal from the Russia investigation, Sessions and Trump had a strong bond. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump early in the presidential campaign last year when few Republican lawmakers supported the candidate.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III lawyers up. Sessions has hired Chuck Cooper. Cooper and Sessions should be sympatico, as Cooper is a Republican who was part of the Department of Justice Civil Rights division during the Reagan administration. Cooper is probably best known for defending California’s “proposition 8” ban on same-sex marriage in a series of court cases all the way up to the Supreme Court, and losing.
July 21st 2017 as reported in The Washington Post: Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former US officials. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by US spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.
One US official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for US-Russia relations in a Trump administration. Sessions has said repeatedly that he never discussed campaign-related issues with Russian officials and that it was only in his capacity as a US senator that he met with Kislyak. “I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said in March when he announced that he would recuse himself from matters relating to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election and any connections to the Trump campaign.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell The Washington Post reports that intercepted conversations suggest Sessions discussed the Trump campaign with Russian officials during the election. Former Acting CIA Director Jon McLaughlin tells Ari Melber how he’d get to the bottom of who’s leaking – and why.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell The Washington Post reports intercepts show Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak told Moscow he and Jeff Sessions discussed the campaign and Trump’s positions on issues important to Russia during the 2016 campaign. Jon McLaughlin, Max Boot & David Corn join Ari Melber.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams Eli Stokols, Shannon Pettypiece and Peter Baker discuss that US intelligence intercepts show Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with the Russian Ambassador.
On All In with Chris Hayes Maxine Waters: ‘I can’t imagine anyone who has any self-respect being talked about that by the president…and wanting to remain in the job.’
Sessions, a former senator from Alabama, supported Trump from the early days of his candidacy and became a trusted adviser. Ten days after the election, Trump nominated Sessions for attorney general and said in a statement that “Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him.”
In March, Sessions announced that he would recuse himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, including those into Russian interference in the electoral process. That announcement came the day after The Washington Post reported that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and did not disclose those meetings to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January.
The Russia investigations have swept up Trump’s eldest son and his son-in-law, greatly angering the president, who says the charges are unfounded and part of a “witch hunt.” Trump has been privately criticizing Sessions for weeks, and he said in an interview with the New York Times last week that he would not have appointed Sessions if he had known the attorney general would recuse himself, as he considers the decision “very unfair to the president.”
The president vented to the world in a series of tweets on Monday morning, lashing out not only at Sessions but also at Democrats and the media, whom he has blamed for hyping and continuing the investigations. The first tweet came at 6:40 a.m. in Washington: “Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer – it’s actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!” Twelve minutes later, the president went after Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.): “After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that “Democrats should blame ourselves,not Russia.”” Trump seemed to be referring to a comment Schumer made to The Post last week, in which he said: “When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t blame other things — Comey, Russia — you blame yourself.”
There was then a lull, and the president returned at 8:49 a.m. with the swipe at Sessions and demanded to know why his general election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, is not also being investigated: “So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?” Twenty-three minutes after that, the president went after Representative Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the lead Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee: “Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into “Russia,” spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!” Six minutes later, at 9:18 a.m., the president shifted to talking about health-care legislation: “Republicans have a last chance to do the right thing on Repeal & Replace after years of talking & campaigning on it.”
On All In with Chris Hayes There are multiple reports that Trump and his inner circle are considering firing Jeff Sessions, amidst an increasingly strange barrage of public utterances by Trump against his attorney general.
On All In with Chris Hayes Attorney General Jeff Sessions should go, Congressman Eric Swalwell of California tells Chris Hayes, but not for the reasons Donald Trump has been giving.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell The Washington Post reports Trump wants the Russia probe to end so badly he may be considering firing Jeff Sessions and appointing a new AG with a recess appointment. WaPo’s Robert Costa gives the latest. Josh Barro and Richard Painter also join Lawrence O’Donnell.
But Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no plans to leave office, as friends say he’s grown angry with Donald Trump following a series of attacks meant to marginalize his power and, potentially, encourage his resignation. “Sessions is totally pissed off about it,” said a Sessions ally familiar with his thinking. “It’s beyond insane. It’s cruel and it’s insane and it’s stupid.”
Sessions’ allies say the president’s criticism of the attorney general is counterproductive. Perhaps more than any other member of Trump’s Cabinet, Sessions has been an uncompromising advocate for Trump’s agenda. The attorney general has worked methodically to dismantle Obama’s legacy at the Justice Department: reconsidering the department’s efforts to make troubled police departments change their practices, changing the DOJ’s stance on voter-ID lawsuits, and rolling back former Attorney General Eric Holder’s sentencing guidelines that were aimed at reduced incarceration and balancing out drug-crime-related punishments.
Every pick for a U.S. Attorney’s office that Sessions has made has underscored the administration’s focus on border security. He’s visited the border twice to emphasize a desire to prosecute undocumented immigrants. He’s passionately defended Trump’s so-called travel ban and threatened to withhold funding from “sanctuary” cities. In the process, he’s become Public Enemy No. 1 for progressives, which makes his targeting by Trump so baffling to those close to him. “He’s not going anywhere,” said another Sessions ally. “He is not going to resign. What he is accomplishing is way too important to the country.”
Rather than quit, Sessions insiders predict the attorney general will call Trump’s bluff. And unlike other members of Trump’s Cabinet, he has political wiggle room to do so. Trump’s base of support—immigration restrictionists, rank-and-file law-enforcement officials, and states’ rights conservatives—were Sessions’ fans before they flocked to the president. They may very well scoff at the idea that the administration would be better off without its AG. Sessions also enjoys continued support in the Senate, where he served for a decade. On Tuesday (July 25th 2017) morning, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pushed back on Trump’s attacks and called the president’s encouragement that Sessions prosecute Hillary Clinton over her email use “highly inappropriate.”
July 26th 2017 Trump has discussed with confidants and advisers in recent days the possibility of installing a new attorney general through a recess appointment if Jeff Sessions leaves the job, but Trump has been warned not to move to push him out because of the political and legal ramifications, according to people briefed on the conversations. Still raging over Sessions’s recusal from the Justice Department’s escalating Russia investigation, Trump has been talking privately about how he might replace Sessions and possibly sidestep Senate oversight, four people familiar with the issue said.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams As he continues to blast Attorney General Jeff Sessions, some legal experts are beginning to wonder if Trump understands why Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation.
On All In with Chris Hayes The president isn’t firing his attorney general. He’s just passive-aggressively attacking him again and again and again.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Senator Al Franken (D-MN) joins Lawrence O’Donnell exclusively to react to the Senate’s vote to proceed on a health care bill and the escalating turmoil around Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in which Franken played a key role with his critical under-oath questioning.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Trump is still publicly berating his Attorney General, calling Sessions out for his recusal in the Russia probe and downplaying his critical primary endorsement. But a new report suggests the AG won’t back down. Eugene Robinson & Ron Klain join Lawrence O’Donnell.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Time and again, Republicans gave Donald Trump a pass on his extreme policies and bad behavior. So what’s the one move that has finally turned the GOP against their president? Trump’s continued criticism of Jeff Sessions. Lawrence O’Donnell examines.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell The Washington Post reports Donald Trump is considering replacing AG Jeff Sessions with a recess appointment. Could he actually make that happen? What would the ramifications be if he tried? John Heilemann, Max Boot, and Mieke Eoyang join Lawrence O’Donnell.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams After days of being called ‘beleaguered’ and ‘very weak’ by his boss Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions responds – and our panel reacts.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams Trump is still blasting his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former GOP senator. But if Trump were to go ahead and fire Sessions, how would Republicans react? Our panel discusses.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams The Washington Post reports Trump may replace Jeff Sessions while lawmakers are on recess. If that happens, what would come next? Jeremy Peters, Michael Schmidt, & Andrea Mitchell join.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams With the president’s continued attacks on his own Attorney General, MSNBC National Security Analyst Jeremy Bash points out Sessions could end up being a witness in the Russia probe.
- And another thing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was supposed to have recused himself from any decisions over the Russia investigation so how could Sessions then be writing any letters and making any recommendations to Trump to fire Comey? And how could Trump be taking that recommendation when it comes to anything involving Russian investigations or investigators? Firing Comey will not stop the investigations, it may slow them down but they will not stop. We needed independent investigation by special prosecutors, As Soon As Possible, which Trump would also be able to fire, either directly or indirectly by ordering the US Attorney General (if one is appointed) or the Deputy US Attorney General to fire him or her like Nixon did but they would have to explain to Congress why the person was fired (and Trump doing that would make things worse for himself), and Rachel Maddow talks about other ways how Trump might try to end the special investigation and can the Trump-Russia special counsel be undermined by Trump. But we finally got closer to getting a special prosecutor.
- June 13th, 2017 Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified but repeatedly refused to answer questions from senators about his private conversations with Trump, including whether he spoke to Trump about former FBI director James B. Comey’s handling of the investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race. In a number of testy exchanges with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sessions said he would not answer many of their questions because of a long-standing Justice Department policy that he said protects private conversations between Cabinet secretaries and the president. The attorney general confirmed elements of Comey’s dramatic testimony before the same panel last week while disputing others. Sessions said he was in an Oval Office meeting in February with Comey and Trump when the president said he wanted to speak to Comey privately, and he acknowledged that Comey came to talk to him the next day about the meeting. At other times, though, Sessions frequently said he couldn’t recall specifics, particularly when asked about his meetings with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign.
So suddenly Sessions has amnesia and can’t remember anything and on top of that Sessions basically invoked executive privilege for Trump even though Trump had not invoked executive privilege himself. It is not up to Sessions to invoked executive privilege for Trump when Trump had not done it. So perhaps the Senate Intelligence Committee should find Sessions in Contempt of Congress and put him in a federal prison. Although, finding someone in Contempt of Congress involves lengthy court battles and there would not be any fast answers, the threat of going to prison or actually being in prison for a while may eventually shake loose some of Sessions’ memory and some answers that don’t involve Sessions’ trying to invoked executive privilege for Trump because Sessions would be too busy trying to get his own butt out of a sling to worry about Trump.
