Trump and Sessions

Can anyone on the right tell me wtf Trump is doing by throwing shade on Sessions at this point? If you're loyal to Trump at this point it has be be recognized that the loyalty may not be reciprocated.

 

Sessions acts with independence. There's a long tradition of law enforcement being independent of chief executives and Trump is not cool with it. He doesn't want Russian interference in our election investigated and he doesn't want his family's business connections with Russia investigated.

 

He is a borderline lunatic at times. I cannot imagine any sane person throwing a direct report under the bus so publicly. Especially considering that he is the one that CHOSE Sessions. Just bizarre.

 

The entire New York Times interview made zero sense. First, the fact that he did the interview with them demonstrates how much he values the NYT. His continuous claim of "Fake News" is so blatantly a dog whistle for his followers to ignore what they are hearing yet he still values them enough to grant them an in depth interview.

Then to go on and throw shade at Session, Mueller and others was idiotic. Clearly he knew Mueller was looking into his family finances but threatening him so publicly can't help your position. Maybe that too was a dog whistle to the Trumpsters to publicly decry an aspect that should be part of the investigation.

Calling my shot...Trump will eventually fire Mueller too. At the heat starts to increase, he'll can him too claiming "witch hunt" forcing Congress to act. It's at that point bash/love approach to McConnell/Ryan will come back to bite him.

 

If he fires Mueller, the Senate will immediately put him and his staff on their team.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html

Read some of this transcript. He almost can't formulate a sentence. Think back to his interviews from 10 and 20 years ago. He was sharp and well spoken. I think back to him when he was considering politics on Oprah in the 1990's. He's apparently watched too much Steve Doocey.

I don't know which part is my favorite. The "best speech on foriegn soil", the dogging of his biggest GOP establishment ally in Sessions or him dogging Rothstien and Mueller as partisan and warning them not to look into his family's finances. What's Mueller's first move? To follow the strings to the finances. You can't make this stuff up.

 

I don't like Sessions' hardline stance on the drug war and civil asset forfeiture, but he's generally an honorable guy who tries to do the right thing. He should resign. He doesn't need to be part of this. Being Attorney General is a tough gig. The opposition party is going to crap on you nonstop because that's modern politics. However, if your own President is going to crap on you, then it's not worth sticking around.

And I agree about the Times. If the Times sucks so badly and is so unfair to Trump (a charge that I think has merit), then why the hell is he talking to them? I can only assume that he's craving attention. And somebody needs to tell Trump that saying "You shouldn't even be looking into this" makes you look guilty, especially after your own kid has been caught in a lie about it. Even if you're not being transparent, you have to at least give the illusion of transparency.

 

Because that's what Trump does. He's not loyal to anyone, and he is intrinsically self-centered in what he does. He is incapable of evaluating someone outside of the parameters of how this person will follow MY agenda. I think that in terms of actual policy and strategy, he probably puts more thought into things than people give him credit for, but in terms of what he says, it's whatever's floating on the top of his brain at the moment.

I suspect he took the Times interview because he was in the mood to be interviewed when someone asked. And once he sat down, words just started coming out. From everything I've seen, it's a reflection of the fact that Trump doesn't put a lot of value in what he's saying at any given time. I think we've seen evidence of that.

 

Ha, you think Eric Holder was independent of Obama? Didn't Holder refuse to appoint Special Councils for Benghazi, the IRS scandal, and numerous other Democrat shenanigans?

 

If the Obama White House attempted any micromanaging of the DOJ, he was a lot more skilled and subtle about it than either his predecessor or successor.

 

Obama was a master of this technique, and frankly leftists are much better at this than conservatives are, because for the most part they're not worried about someone going too far to the left. All Obama had to do is put the right people in place, have vague general discussions about priorities, and then simply let things go. I doubt he ever had to tell Holder to interfere with anything, because he knew what Holder wanted to accomplish, how he would go about the business of his job, and trusted that the two were on the same page. That's why Lois Lerner never had to be told to target conservatives. It came naturally to her, and I suspect anyone who knew her, her background, and her ideology would know exactly how she would use the authority of her position. That's why nothing ever gets back to a president who knows how to appoint the right people: you put the person in place, tell them your priorities, assure them that you have their back, and then let them go.

Had Holder actually gotten an independent counsel, then I suspect you'd have seen a lot more obvious interference. Why meddle when your people are doing exactly what you want?

 

I read that Hope Hicks and Trump were the only ones to know about the Times interview. Spicer, Sanders, etc. had no clue that it was even taking place. They just get to hang around for the clean up.

 

If we can spend half of the time and energy investigating Russia compared to what was spent on f'n Benghazi then 20 people will go to jail.

 

Barry, I think we have 4 congressional committees, multiple agencies, and a special counsel investigating it, so we're well on the way.

 

This is interesting only from a gossip perspective. Trump thinks the wife of Japan's PM, Akie Abe, speaks zero English. There are multiple examples of her giving speeches in English on the interweb. Did she purposely play the "I'm a timid Japanese woman that doesn't speak English" card during her interactions with Donald and Melania? Maybe that's Japanese protocol?

 

That is interesting?

 

Who could work for a boss like this?

 

Since Jeff Sessions was known for being so soft on Democrats . . .

Seriously, Sessions should resign - not because he's doing something wrong but because he shouldn't get tangled up in this mess.

 

Dude is loyal like Darrel k. Royal.

 

I think that's what Trump wants so he doesn't get the blowback from firing him and that action getting tied into Russia meddling. Sessions has always publicly been loyal to Trump. For anyone not name Trump/Kushner, this has to be a big blow to any belief that you have support from your boss. Session's friend in the Senate must be aghast at Trump's treatment. At some level, Trump needs allies in the Senate to move anything forward.

 

And Trump is loyal like Judas?

 

Of course, Sessions hung Trump out to dry when he recused himself and let the witch hunt continue....so he has to accept the consequences of his actions

 

The problem is that from an ethical standpoint, Sessions didn't have much choice. He was becoming a subject of the investigation after his statements before the Senate. Whether it was hanging Trump out to dry or not, it wouldn't have been appropriate for him to be in charge.

 

So I guess i'm a "witch hunter" because I want more clarity when there is substantial evidence that Russia used military level hacking to take sides in the Presidential election on behalf of a campaign whose officials have lied about contact with Russians before the election?

Wow I wonder how those people who still don't know enough about Benghazi feel about themselves?

 

It feels like Trump is trying to get Sessions to resign on his own because he fears the blowback of firing the AG given his recent learnings on firing the FBI director. Hate to break the news to him, but a Sessions resignation given his recent public statements will not look much better.

 

About 4 to 5 months too late, but Sessions is supposed to announce a criminal leak investigation soon

Why did he wait so long?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...eb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.a153fe1b07d5

 

I think it's sad and dangerous that this sort of thing has become a measure of partisan or ideological loyalty. It leaves no room for the person who simply wants the right thing to be done. If the Russian government hacked into one of our political parties' e-mail system to influence the outcome of the election, that is worth looking into. That has nothing to do with what one thinks of Trump or anybody else.

And yes, it's true that most of the people crowing about this in the media are self-interested partisan hacks who'd approach the issue entirely differently if the GOP had been hacked instead. First, the hacking element would be almost completely ignored. The focus would be on the most embarrassing contents of the e-mails - something that got very little play during the campaign and gets no attention now. Second, they would be unsympathetic to the losing Republican. They'd say he was a paranoid red-baiter with sour grapes about losing. Third, they don't actually care about the national security implications of Russia. If they did, the Obama Administration would have cared about the issue before the election much more than he did (which was pretty much none) and wouldn't have been so lax about Russia in his foreign policy. It's true. The Dems have no friggin' credibility on this from a security standpoint. Link.

However, if you're a conscientious American who simply wants to know what happened and takes national security (including cybersecurity) seriously, why does any of that matter? It doesn't. That's why I always err on the side of disclosure and discovery whether we're talking about Benghazi, the sleazy private e-mail server, Ukraine hopping in the sack with the Democrats, or this. Look into it all, and let the facts and evidence work themselves out.

 

You make some fair points and Sessions has been doing a lot of good things.
However, his handful of mistakes have been fatal errors
Difficult to balance all of this

 

I can see your point, but let's put a finer edge on it. Sessions had public, verifiable, and documented contacts with Russians before the election as a member of the Armed Services Committee. Al Franken and everyone else knew this while questioning Sessions. It seems obvious that Sessions answered Franken's question in terms of campaign contact with the Russians, not any contact with the Russians.

The false, partisan narrative being pushed by the losers is that "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers existed. It is fairly obvious that the Russians hacked Podesta's emails. Since the losers haven't defined a crime committed by the Trump campaign and the only crime I can see is the hacking itself, the losers must be saying that the Trump campaign was responsible for the hacking to some degree (funding or technical support). Just benefitting from the release of the hacked emails is no crime despite the losers wanting to make it a crime. However, just being a loser and accusing somebody of a crime without a shred of evidence, and after a year there is zero evidence, is not sufficient grounds to base a recusal on.

The bigger picture is that the expressly stated goal, and activity to date, of the Democrats is to use investigations and the legal system to disrupt the Trump administration at every turn. Sessions did try to do the honorable thing with recusal despite the dishonorable intentions behind the "collusion" narrative of the Democrats and media. Trump is taking the false accusations personally for good reason, and, as you stated, Trump wanted that partisan loyalty from Sessions to fight the dishonorable intentions of the Democrats and MSM.

With more knowledge about DOJ rules, Trump wouldn't have picked Sessions to begin with, so that mistake is on Trump, and he has to correct the problem. Unfortunately, Sessions is going to suffer the consequences.

 

FW::FW:: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential

Nothing to see here.

LOL

 

Incoherent response. You're going to have to use your words Bubba.