I see here that the U.S. Senate confirmed Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III at Attorney General on February 8th in a very contentious and narrow 52-47 vote. Every Republican voted for him and every Democrat voted against. I see here that Sessions recused himself from the FBI’s Russia investigation on Thursday March 2nd. February is a short month, so that only amounts to a three-week span of time. Sessions’ recusal came a day after the news blared in the headlines that he had likely perjured himself during his confirmation hearings by failing to disclose meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Obviously, some people knew of the meetings long before it was reported in the nation’s papers and probably even before Sessions testified.
My point, though, is that there wasn’t a long lag between the news breaking and Sessions recusing himself.
That’s all my set up for talking about James Comey’s testimony today as it pertained to Sessions.
Right in the middle of this timeline, on Valentine’s Day, Comey attended a national security meeting in the Oval Office. At the conclusion of that meeting, the president asked everyone but Comey to leave and then told the FBI director that it was his hope that he could kill the investigation of Michael Flynn who had been forced to resign the previous day.
After that meeting, Comey met with his leadership team at the FBI to figure out how to respond, and they discussed who, if anyone, they should contact at the Department of Justice. They concluded that it didn’t make sense to talk to Sessions about it because they assumed that he would soon be forced to recuse himself from any part in the investigation of Flynn or anything related to Russia.
In a cryptic note, Comey mentioned in his prepared statement and his testimony Thursday that the FBI expected Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the Russia-related investigation. This turned out to be correct, as Sessions would later do just that, but Comey would not specifically say why he thought the attorney general would recuse himself.
The now-fired FBI director wrote that he decided not to tell Sessions about Trump’s request that he hoped he would let go of the Flynn investigation, because he and the bureau leadership felt “it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations.”
When asked about this Thursday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Comey suggested that there were reasons Sessions could not remain involved in the probe but that those reasons involved classified information.
Comey said that the FBI felt Sessions would recuse himself “for a variety of reasons.” He also said the bureau was “aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.” Comey did not elaborate further on these “facts.”
The upper echelon of the FBI correctly suspected on the 14th or 15th of February that Sessions would have to recuse himself “for a variety of reasons” but the rest of us wouldn’t know any of those reasons until about March 1st. More than that, there are still reasons we don’t know and cannot know which is why Comey would only discuss them today in a classified setting.
I always suspected that the information about Kisylak leaked from the FBI because they were the entity responsible for doing domestic surveillance on the Russian ambassador. So, maybe they didn’t just suspect that Sessions would be forced to recuse himself but were themselves responsible for assuring that outcome.
What’s curious is another thing that Comey said in his testimony:
“We were convinced, and in fact I think we already heard that the career people were recommending [Sessions] recuse himself, that he wasn’t going to be in contact with Russia-related matters much longer,” he continued. “And that turned out to be the case.”
I’m not sure who the “career people” would be in this instance and I think it’s kind of important to know the answer to that question. Were these people at the Department of Justice or in the FBI? Were they seriously having that conversation in mid-February? And based on what set of facts?
Meetings with Kislyak, even if we’re talking about several of them, wouldn’t amount to “a variety of reasons.”
It clearly looks like the FBI thought of Sessions as a suspect which would explain why they’d want to sideline him to protect the investigation. It obviously explains why they didn’t want to keep him in the loop about the presidents’ efforts to obstruct the Flynn investigation. And it also explains why Comey, after he was fired, leaked news of his memos on his conversations with Trump for the freely admitted reason that he wanted to force the appointment of a Special Counsel.
President Nixon once said that the people have the right to know if their president is a crook. He was right about that. But I think the people also have the right to know if their Attorney General is a crook.
No question he is a crook
Think he is suppose to testify before congress nest week
Will he take the fifth, refuse to answer, or just lie?
More like criminal to me.
The question is not whether the people have a right to know.
The question is whether they have an obligation to care.
Sessions, a sitting Senator, became the foremost surrogate for Trump and apparently directed Carter Page on his trip to Russia, supposedly with a tape from Trump intended for Putin. He should have known better but let his lifelong, rabid racism cloud his judgment. No matter how clearly he is indicted in the Russian investigation, I think he will try to stay so he can sabotage civil and voting rights as well as enforcement of much of anything except pot.
A “crook” perhaps or not. Waiting for more shoes of this centipede to drop. Lying in settings lies should absolutely not be tolerated in a democratic society, check. Contacts with Russians and thus by default compromised in relation to any relevant investigation, check. What a record for an AG in three months. Quite clear from his testimony today and his past actions, Comey is utterly aghast by the actions of both Sessions and Trump. “Sad!” it must be for the career bureaucratic class to find all government institutions and norms dismantled for yet another Trump self-aggrandizing reality TV show or casino.
Often I can parse my way through typos and misuses with some help from context.
Not here, though. I haven’t the first clue what that was intended to mean.
I’d parse it as “Lying (while speaking/testifying) in settings (i.e., circumstances such as confirmation hearings) [where] lies should absolutely not be tolerated….”
Excellent parsing. Thank you for the clarification. I should have written “Lying in settings ‘where’ lies . . . “
Beauregard has a past. Talk to some folks in Alabama about him.
As of now, 40+ hours and counting since Trump’s last tweet (5:17 a.m. yesterday).
How long can he hold out?
Now out with Comey’s a liar, I’m totally vindicated, look who’s leaking!
killed him.
The republicans likely had access to info that they would have known during his confirmation hearing that Sessions was lying to them, and confirmed him anyway. I speculate its possible that they wanted him in the DOJ as AG so from that position he could insulate himself and protect Trump at the same time and either help quash or at least minimize the scope of the investigation. Apparently they didn’t count on the FBI blowing that up by leaking to make sure he had to recuse himself, since it was obvious that the republicans weren’t going to do anything. Which is a possible explanation for why Trump was so mad at Sessions for later recusing himself because that was the plan. But now it looks like as an early supporter of Trump he was involved a lot more with Kislyak and the Russians. He lied in his confirmation hearing about two meetings, and now yet another meeting has come to light. He’s already exposed to perjury charges, and who knows what else.
There are a lot of reasons Sessions should resign, the least of them Trump being a jackass and creating what probably amounts to the classic hostile working environment for him. Even if he does, resigning at this point won’t save him as stuff he’s already done continues to come to light. Resigning also put him on the outside of institutions controlled by the right, i.e. the presidency and congress, that could provide some cover, at least politically, which they have even less of an ability to do that now. Thus leaving him at the mercy of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies which are out for blood after being stupidly made enemies of by Trump. The Keebler Elf is a juicy little target for them. His best bet at that point will be to turn to minimize his own personal damage and tell all to save himself rather than risk what for him could amount to a life sentence.
I believe Sessions is key; he’s the thread that by pulling on it the whole thing starts to unravel and begin to fall apart.
A lot of voters were aware of Sessions’ association with Drumpf, as well as his flagrantly racist and likely corrupt past. Which raises the question we are having such a hard time grappling with:
What if something like a majority of the voters WANT a socio-pathic gangster as their President?
What’s complicating every aspect of the investigation into Drumpf & Co. is that they just got their ticket punched by the electorate (as far as we know any ways). So claiming that he’s a scumbag, a liar, etc., doesn’t bite as it would if he had been completely (or honestly, even a little) different as a candidate. But boy oh boy did he let it all hang out…
And so we have a duly elected socio-path gangster as President, with the predictable results. And still somewhere between 3 and 4 in 10 of us think this is fine.
Drumpf is but a symptom (or expression, or whatever — function?) of the social dysfunction that the GOP and their reactionary friends around the world have been engineering for half a century.
Not exactly working out as the fun little sinecure that the Littlest Confederate had expected, ha-ha.
Here he goes way out on a limb, throws away his lifetime (non-working!) DC appointment, works his little ass off to get the grossly unfit, unqualified, malevolent imbecile gangster “elected” (so to speak, given our failed constitution) and THIS is his thanks? To be immediately berated by the buffoon Trumper? Thankfully for our Southern-fried Hee-Ro it sure doesn’t look like the CEO of FailedNation, Inc has much use for a “cabinet”!
Sessions’ true job security is that, try as one might, it is hard to imagine Der Trumper being able to find a stooge as big as the Littlest Confederate, and since Comey’s Gambit in seeking a special prosecutor has now occurred, Trumperian regrets/anger/rage is water under the bridge–at least until Trumper/Jared decide to fire Mueller! And even Fox would have to cover that, ha-ha.
Sessions is/was/always will be a joke as AG. Like the whole ridiculous and criminal Trump admin, he is an appalling stain on the nation that can never be removed whether he hold the office or not. An intellectual and moral turd of his magnitude being confirmed as AG, there’s the rub. Out Dam’ned Spot, indeed! As if.
So the question of the Littlest Stooge’s technical “criminality” ultimately is rhetorical…
You ask:
“Is our attorney general a crook?”
#1-He is not “our” attorney general, he is Trump’s attorney general.
#2-If there were illegal strings pulled to get Trump elected…and I do not care by whom or by what interests…then he is not “our” president, either.
Plus…and this is by far the most important part of what I have to say here, even though our lovely media are not even skirting the issue.
#3-Are there any important players on both supposed sides of the election (and the third side as well…the dark side, the Intelligence side) who are not…in some easily and commonly understandable way…”crooks?” If there are, they are few and far between in my opinion. Almost the entire elected federal government is in hock one way or anther to corporate interests that are not provably criminal only because of their enormous wealth and power. That goes for the Intelligence services as well as large segments of the military and police services of this system. While we’re at it, let’s include the state governments, too.
Nixon misspoke when he said “I am not a crook!!!”
He should have said:
Bet on it.
I suppose he feared for his own life if he took the whole scam down.
Bet on that as well.
But what a way to go!!!
AG
In my comment above I accused the entire system of being crooked…or at the very least huge segments of it. Below is a perfect snapshot of how the media, government, corporate interests and the so-called “think tanks”/academia in general work together to keep things profitable rather than usable.
Counterpunch today. (Fri./6/9/17) The following has a special resonance for me because I live in the Bronx; primarily work in Manhattan and Brooklyn and depend on public transportation for most of that travel. Over the past several years I have been forced to add easily an hour in each direction to my work days in order to be sure of not being late.
And there we pretty well have it, up and down he system as it stands today. Collusion amongst the standing bureaucracy, the elected officials who are supposed oversee that bureaucracy and its workings, the corporations who are hustling for profit by any means necessary and the media that is supposed to report on how things are going.
More:
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” says the contractor, who despite getting “caught,” tripled his initial profit.
Blow this kind of stuff up onto the federal level and you are dealing in trillions.
More, even.
I repeat an oft-asked question:
Are you any better off than you were say 25 years ago?
Most of us would have to say “No, I am not.”
But not the .01% and their helpers.
Bet on it.
Livin’ the high life.
Bet on it.
AG