Posted on 07/19/2017 6:14:34 PM PDT by SkyPilot
President Trump said on Wednesday that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision “very unfair to the president.”
In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions’s decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. “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,” Mr. Trump said.
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the president also accused James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired in May, of trying to leverage a dossier of compromising material to keep his job. Mr. Trump criticized both the acting F.B.I. director who has been filling in since Mr. Comey’s dismissal and the deputy attorney general who recommended it. And he took on Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel now leading the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller was running an office rife with conflicts of interest and warned investigators against delving into matters too far afield from Russia. Mr. Trump never said he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, nor would he outline circumstances under which he might do so. But he left open the possibility as he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political toll in the six months since he took office.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There’s a lot that’s unusual about this interview, first of all being with the NYT which Trump has denounced numerous times as fake news. Secondly, Jeff Sessions was one of his earliest supporters and there is a very warm relationship there, if there were problems of this magnitude it wouldn’t be aired in a manner seemingly designed to humiliate and it certainly wouldn’t be via the NYT.
So, I’m very prone to thinking more is afoot than we know, and will wait and see. Sessions has dismayed me with the civil asset forfeiture and focusing on D.A.R.E. though. Of all the pressing matters, that’s just not one of them.
"I recused myself not because of any asserted wrongdoing on my part during the campaign," Sessions said. "But because a Department of Justice regulation, 28 CFR 45.2, required it.""That regulation states, in effect, that department employees should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they have served as a campaign advisor," said Sessions.
28 CFR 45.2 - Disqualification arising from personal or political relationship. <- Link
Since many Dems and others were calling for Sessions to recuse himself as soon as Trump announced him, it was an amateurish blunder for Trump’s people not to find out how Sessions would respond to the inevitable questions that would be asked at the confirmation hearing. Something doesn’t add up. Perhaps this is a Trump misdirection?
I don't have a problem with public put downs, per se. They can be justified and useful. My issue is that Trump is blaming Sessions for not being prescient, and that is only not fair to Sessions, it looks like a character flaw in Trump, to me. And so I agree with your point that this risks turning off qualified people, from serving in the Trump administration. Loyalty is a two way street. Trump doesn't give it, he has no right to expect it.
I climbed down Angus King's throat for accusing sessions of playing "hide the ball" in sessions' June hearing appearance. My calling of of King was justified ONLY because the accusation, by King, had no basis, and King knew it had no basis. He was trying to score points with some DEM constituency, but still bad character on King's part.
Well we have a ringside seat to see how it plays out. I hope you are right.
It meant a lot to Jeff Sessions to be confirmed and lay to rest the untrue accusations of his last confirmation hearing in 1986, when he was grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee after President Ronald Reagan nominated him as federal district judge for Alabama.
Another Clinton trick...”Oh, that’s old news.”
I agree with all that. Although the drug prohibition is today's version of the alcohol wars of days gone by. Part of tamping down gang activity is tamping down demand for drugs. Fools errand, but the laws facilitate making tons of money on all sides of the racket, including the enforcement side.
Maybe DARE and civil forfeiture will be used judiciously, with an eye on effectively reducing violence. IOW, DARE and forfeiture are not objects in and of themselves, and the people swept up are the most harmful ones.
DoJ is huge. Lots more than US Attorneys and the FBI.
Just another traitor/rino.
That call for recusal at that time was in relation to prosecution of Crooked Hillary. I posted a summary of instances of "recsal" being raised in January 10 hearing, which was TWO MONTHS after he was selected, November 18.
Trump's complaint about recusal, today, is in relation to the Russia investigations. Trump is blaming Sessions for not being open in November, about something that didn't become a known issue until at least a few weeks after Sessions was confirmed.
-- Perhaps this is a Trump misdirection? --
We'll never know. That's an essential part of being unpredictable. Don't show your cards after a successful bluff either.
“How would President Trump get another Attorney General appointed ?”
Get McConnell to do his job. All of this “advise and consent” BS could only take a couple of weeks at the outside if McConnell would change the rules.
It clearly deals with avoiding a conflict of interest by people participating in a criminal investigation.
I've got no experience with the law, but it seems to read that he could have just reported that he had a personal and political relationship with Trump and his campaign, and then waited for his supervisor to "relieve him from participation" if that supervisor couldn't determine that he could be impartial.
Don’t read NYT.
I don’t understand him giving interviews to these propaganda outlets either and yet he’s puzzling himself in refusing to fire those hostile to him and undermining him that this isn’t all about Jeff Sessions.
I think the regulation is cited in post 189. (28 CFR 45.2)
We will just agree to disagree. The Dems will be the ones celebrating the resignation of Sessions. He was doing a great job as AG. It will be months before we will see a replacement. In the meantime Rosenstein is the AG.
He's top dog. Doesn't have a supervisor for this function.
In an honest system, recusal of the top dog is a non-issue. The next person in line handles the case.
Sessions was pressured to issue a pre-emptive recusal by reports that he had fudged his answers in his confirmation hearing. That accusation is bogus too (Trump piles on though, about Sessions' answer to Franken), but the reports that Flynn was under investigation coupled with Sessions' admission of having met with a couple of Russians created a situation where ignoring the question of recusal would inflame the issue.
Sessions issued his recusal memo on March 2nd. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Dana Boente was to take those cases.
In a parallel universe, there is no investigation, and the recusal is moot. It exists, but so what? That is not the universe we are in.
Comey had ginned up a handful of investigations into the Trump campaign. Comey told the world about them FOR THE FIRST TIME on March 20th. Before that, the investigations were reported by unnamed sources. Once confirmed, they have to "run their course."
Comey broke the rules, by the way, when he divulged the existence of these investigations. he said in his testimony that this was authorized by the DoJ, I'm guessing by McCabe.
Now (in late March) the recusal, which is square within the regulation, is an issue.
So let's blame Sessions for not bringing this up before he was selected, back in November.
Sessions recusal opened the flood gates on this entire ridiculous Russia collusion non sense. Hes a nice guy, but this is the most cut throat attack on a sitting President iv’e ever seen...the electoral voters were getting death threats for gods sake. Sessions is from a different time...this is a death match and Trump need a killer as AG. A special counsel 4 months into a Presidency and not even crime was committed? Its insane. Plus, hes scared $#^%$ less of the media....literally shakes at press conferences. That Clinton case would be re opened so fast if it was me.....huge disappointment.
Audio of Trump himself => https://youtube.com/watch?v=GDP-bUiecmo
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