At the end of a very strange week for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the biggest potential blow of them all to his future in the administration hit the news feed on Friday. The timing was strange; Fridays are normally associated with news you want to throw away before the weekend, not the “bombshell” report that Washington Post put out.
Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.
There was a time before the craziness of 2016 when I liked Sessions. I’ve always questioned a chunk of his stances, particularly with the overreach he seems to favor for law enforcement such as civil asset forfeiture, but generally speaking he was conservative among a sea of pastel-colored moderates in the GOP Senate. After endorsing Trump, some of his luster faded. Lately, his true authoritarian colors have been coming out.
Regardless of how I feel about his policies, this WaPo report offers extremely damaging allegations. If Sessions spoke about foreign policy with a Russian Ambassador during the campaign, it means that he broke the rules and lied about it. Hugh Hewitt seems to think this could be the end for Sessions, but as SooperMexican points out, there are still enough questions to make us wonder about the validity of the report:
Hugh says IF the WaPo story is true, AND the intercepts were lawfully obtained, AND they exist, then it’s over for Jeff Sessions. This is likely true, but it’s interesting how quickly people are jumping out to condemn the guy, when there are so many caveats here.
It’s important to note what WaPo buried at the end of their report. Tyler Durden noticed:
However, WaPo waited until the end of the story to disclose one key detail about Kislyak’s reports to his superiors concerning his meetings with Sessions. According to Kislyak, Sessions didn’t discuss anything that could’ve influenced the election – i.e. nothing here fits in with the Don Jr. collusion narrative. And, more importantly, there’s no way to corroborate Kislyak’s characterization of the meeting. Apparently, Kislyak isn’t a meticulous notetaker, unlike former FBI Director James Comey.
What does all of this mean for Sessions? In short, he’s in big trouble. Even if the report is partially or wholly false, he’s already on President Trump’s naughty list. While the President is quick to defend himself and those in his administration who are not on his naughty list when the press attacks, he fails to come to the defense of those the media hits when they’re on the outs with him. Sessions falls into the latter category.
Sessions can expect kind words from Trump… after he’s out. As Michael Flynn and Sean Spicer learned, the President is very loving to his former allies once they’re no longer employed by him.
Sean Spicer is a wonderful person who took tremendous abuse from the Fake News Media – but his future is bright!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017
Between Sessions recusing himself, the entry of Robert Mueller as a thorn in Trump’s side, and the latest allegations of Sessions lying about Russian contact, it’s very likely he won’t be Attorney General for the full Presidential term. Is it too late for him to run for his old Senate seat?
