Well, back on task then, it seems like we now have the obstruction case closed.
*
"President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election.
Public pressure was building for Mr. Sessions, who had been a senior member of the Trump campaign, to step aside. But the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, carried out the president’s orders and lobbied Mr. Sessions to remain in charge of the inquiry, according to two people with knowledge of the episode.
Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful, and the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him. Mr. Trump said he had expected his top law enforcement official to safeguard him the way he believed Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, had done for his brother John F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr. had for Barack Obama."*
There is quite a bit in this article. If the GOP gave a shit, this is the smoking gun.
Also, a Sessions aid was sent to dig up dirt on Comey a few days before his firing. So, that’s not great.
*
“The New York Times has also learned that four days before Mr. Comey was fired, one of Mr. Sessions’s aides asked a congressional staff member whether he had damaging information about Mr. Comey, part of an apparent effort to undermine the F.B.I. director. It was not clear whether Mr. Mueller’s investigators knew about this incident.”*
Also, Trump’s lawyers lied to him and tried to convince him that he didn’t have the authority to fire Comey:
“After that hearing, Mr. Trump began to discuss openly with White House officials his desire to fire Mr. Comey. This unnerved some inside the White House counsel’s office, and even led one of Mr. McGahn’s deputies to mislead the president about his authority to fire the F.B.I. director.”
That is a good article. However, Trump admitted on national television that he fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation, and Republicans didn’t care. So I’m not sure this is going to move the needle much.
Did we know that Sessions had sent Trump a resignation letter? I hope we get a look at it. I wonder if it includes the reason for Session’s recusal. I mean, we know that he recused himself on the advice of DOJ lifers, but I wonder why they advised him to do so. I suspect Session is sitting on a bombshell. I suspect that his resignation letter told Donald that he (Sessions) would have to go to the FBI if he wasn’t officially working for Donald.
Personally, I think that Sessions ratted out Trump somewhere on the campaign trail and stuck with him as a spy and later to defend the DoJ. He simply had to play the part of a regular Trumpist advisor for the first few months in order to not reveal the gig.
I remember when Sessions offered that letter and Trump rejected it. I’ve often imagined that in hindsight, Trump regrets having not accepted that offer of resignation. Of course, it’s always someone else’s fault, so Trump probably blames Sessions for him, Trump, not having accepted Sessions’ letter of resignation…
Sessions really didn’t have a choice about whether or not to recuse himself. Sessions understood that to not recuse himself meant he would commit ongoing, continuous criminal acts for the duration of his time as AG. You can’t repeatedly lie under oath about your contacts with Russians during the election, then head up an investigation into Russian interference into that same election of which you were an integral part, and ultimately get away with it. His conflict of interest is huge. Ehhhrrmm… yyyuuugge.
Sessions is already in enough trouble. He probably decided that spending the rest of his life in prison for Donald Trump was a price he wasn’t willing to pay.
If Sessions can manage to turn back the clock on civil rights to [del]pre-1964[/del] pre-1864 during whatever time he stays in office, he’ll probably feel that a lifetime spent in prison is worth it.
Congressman Jolly sent a tweet this morning mentioning that DC and NY are one party states regarding consent to be recorded.
He brings up an interesting point that Mueller can subpoena all the tapes and examine them for statements that conflict or corroborate what was told to investigators. Could be some juicy stuff there.
Mueller indicating that he will be interviewing Trump in the next few weeks.
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"Mueller brought up the issue of interviewing Trump during a late December meeting with the president’s lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. Mueller deputy James Quarles, who oversees the White House portion of the special counsel investigation, also attended.
The special counsel’s team could interview Trump very soon on some limited portion of questions — possibly within the next several weeks, according to a person close to the president who was granted anonymity to describe internal conversations."*
Is Trump capable of not lying during such an interview?
