“First of all, without Sessions’ recusal, there would be no witch-hunt-gone-wild.”
Really? All Sessions had to do was not recuse himself and the deep state would have just given up and walked away?
How would that have unfolded exactly?
In May of 2017, amid growing cries, mostly from Democrats, that someone independant of the DOJ should investigate allegations of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, Rosenstien appointed Mueller, because Sessions had recused himself. The appointment of Mueller was widely accepted and approved of by the Democrats, who transformed overnight from a howling militant lynch mob and adopted a wait-and-see posture.
If Sessions had not recused himself, or had he withdrawn his name to make way for someone more assertive, say, Giuliani, to be AG (let’s assume he would have been confirmed), the decision of whether to heed or ignore the cries from angry democrats to appoint a special counsel, or whether to delay such a decision, or if there was to be one, who it would be - these decisions would have fallen on Sessions (or Guliani), not Rosenstien.
So in May of 2017, if an unrecused Sessions (or Giuliani) had decided to ignore calls for a special prosecutor, or had delayed making a decision, or had chosen someone less adversarial toward the POTUS (and therefore less acceptable to the Democrats), what would have happened to the angry mob of Demcrats that was growing by the day? What would have happened to the daily batch of hyperbolic headlines drawing comparisons between RussiaGate and Watergate?
Would they have all just thrown up their hands and said “Oh well, we tried. But the AG says no, so I guess that’s it. So much for going after Trump.” Would the salivating Democrats, the entire deep state and all the would-be Woodward and Bernstiens of the MSM have just moved on from their dreams of RussiaGate and accepted the decision of Trump’s AG to not investigate any further?
I think you see my point.
I think all along, Trump has done whatever he had to do to defuse the situation, including Sessions’ recusal (believe me, Trump knew about it), including the decision to hire Mueller, including the decision to let Mueller hire whomever he chose, including letting Mueller dig in the playground as long as he wishes, and including the decision to keep Sessions as AG, and Rosenstien as assistant AG.
I think Trump has handled this brilliantly. He has the patience of a saint and will come out smelling like roses.
You can second guess all you want whether Sessions shouldn’t have recused himself, or should have withdrawn his name from nomination, or should have declined to appoint a special prosecutor, or should have fired Rosenstien or Mueller, or should have been replaced as AG by a more assertive AG.
But really if you second guess any of that, it’s ultimately Trump’s decisions you are second guessing. Trump calls the shots. He’s a successful business tycoon. You can be sure he’s got a one year plan, a four year plan and an eight year plan. He is skilled at adapting to a changing reality. He’s skilled at identifying critical paths, bottlenecks and underperforming assets. There’s simply no way a Donald Trump is keeping key members of his team in place if he thinks they are not performing. They’d be out on their asses in a heartbeat.
No need to second guess Trump. He made a statement, which can be found with even the most casual online search:
“Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
Sessions screwed up beyond all belief. As to the Democrats, it’s not their decision whether or not a NON-crime gets investigated. Trump has defused their hysteria before and he could have done it then. But the backstabbing tag team of Sessions and Rosenstein pulled a fast one—and their perfidy will be the defining moment of both careers. And a shameful moment it was, too.
Btw, you don’t give a lot of attention to the FISA warrant issue. It’s critically important, however. Namely, when Rosenstein signed off on the 4th illegal FISA warrant, he committed a felony. It was well known at that time that the dossier was nothing more than unverified opposition claims and accusations. Comey admitted as much. Yet Rosenstein presented the dossier to the FISA judge as confirmed, reliable evidence (against Trump). He did that solely as a means of fixing the election against Trump/in favor of Hillary. It was literally criminal.
Yet this law-breaking anti-Trumper (Rosenstein) is the person—the sole person—Sessions placed in charge of deciding whether to investigate Trump for a NON-Crime, AND in charge of selecting which Hillary-fixer should spearhead the coup.
How on earth can you make excuses for Sessions??? At a bare minimum a felony-committing Hillary shill should not have been given sole authority over Trump’s fate. Are you aware that Rosenstein had to give Mueller a ***conflict of interest waiver*** in order to put him in charge of the witch hunt/fishing expedition??? How can you defend that??? It’s abusive anti-Trump treachery AT BEST. No conservative should want any part of justifying it.