Tag Archives: Jeff Sessions

national news, political news

Hey, didn’t the AG recuse himself from Russia probe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVpDT4PyM04

Al Franken knows a lie when he hears it. He wrote a book about “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.”

The U.S. senator from Minnesota stood on the Senate floor and offered a point-by-point rebuttal of an apparent lie that Donald J. Trump likely told about a recommendation he got to fire FBI Director James Comey.

Then again, perhaps the lie came from the mouth of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who announced this year he would “recuse” himself from any dealings at any level with the probe into whether Russian government officials sought to influence the 2016 presidential election in the president’s favor.

You see, the president said he got a recommendation to fire Comey from — drum roll! — AG Sessions, the fellow who said he would recuse himself from this matter.

Oh yeah! Then there’s that matter of Comey leading the FBI probe into allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian hackers to sway the election.

Sen. Franken’s statement zeroes in quite cleanly on Sessions’ recusal and he casts doubt (a) on whether the president really got a recommendation from Sessions to fire Comey or (b) on whether Sessions has actually recused himself as he pledged to do.

Man, this Comey firing matter is beginning to get stinkier by the day.

national news

‘Ayatollah of Alabama’ seeks U.S. Senate seat

This ought to be fun to watch, even if it’s occurring way over yonder in Alabama.

The state has a vacant U.S. Senate seat, now that Jeff Sessions is serving as attorney general of the United States. That means the state has to conduct a special election to fill the seat.

A fellow named Roy Moore has just entered the contest.

Moore is the suspended Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who got himself into a jam because he told county clerks in his state that they didn’t have to abide by federal law and approve marriage licenses for gay couples.

Oops. Can’t do that!

Now he wants to run for the Senate. Why does this matter to people outside of Alabama? Well, if this guy is elected it means he’ll take part in making law for the rest of us. That includes those of us in the Texas Panhandle.

Moore is a fiery conservative. He once refused to remove a Ten Commandments tablet from the court grounds in Montgomery, Ala. He disagreed with decisions that the tablet violated the First Amendment rule prohibiting government sanctioning of religion.

“My position has always been God first, family, then country,” the Republican Moore said while announcing his candidacy for the Senate. OK, he’s a man of deep faith. I understand it. I have faith in God, too.

The Southern Poverty Law Center — which routinely battles with the judge over his rulings — calls Moore the “Ayatollah of Alabama.”

However, here’s the kicker: The oath he would take as a senator is a good bit like the one he took as a judge; it commits him to be faithful to the laws of the land, the U.S. Constitution, which — if you’ll pardon the pun — is the Bible of secular documents.

All I can assure anyone, though, is that the special election in Alabama is bound to be a hoot.

We’re about to see how it will affect the rest of the country.

legal news, national news, political news

No intention to lecture AG about the law, but really …

I am acutely aware that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is an educated man.

He went to law school; passed the Alabama state bar; served as a federal prosecutor; tried to become a federal judge in the 1980s, but was rejected by the U.S. Senate because of some things he reportedly said about black people; then he was elected to the Senate.

He now serves as U.S. attorney general, thanks to an appointment by Donald John Trump.

There. Having stipulated all of that, I need to remind the attorney general that he should not disrespect the tenet of judicial review that the nation’s founders established when they formed our republic more than two centuries ago.

I say this with no desire to lecture the AG about the law, or the U.S. Constitution.

However, when he pops off about a federal judge sitting on the bench “on an island in the Pacific,” he has disrespected one of the basic frameworks set aside by those founders.

The judge presides over a federal court in Hawaii, one of the nation’s 50 states. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson ruled against Trump’s temporary travel ban on constitutional grounds. The travel ban is now heading to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

You’ll recall, too, that the president himself referred to another federal jurist in Washington state as a “so-called judge” when he struck down an earlier travel ban involving refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump might need a lecture about the Constitution and the separation of powers written into it; he might need to be told about how the founders intended for the judiciary to be independent of political pressure. Given that Trump had zero government experience prior to becoming — gulp! — president, he might be unaware of the not-so-fine print written in the Constitution.

The attorney general should know better than to disparage a federal judge in the manner that he did.

An island in the Pacific? C’mon, Mr. Attorney General.

Suck it up. Let the courts do their job. Sure, you are entitled to challenge court decisions’ legality. However, let’s stop the petulant put-downs.

Same thing goes for you, too, Mr. President.

legal news

Mr. AG, Hawaii isn’t just an ‘island in the Pacific’

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said this on a radio talk show: “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power.”

Hmm. An island in the Pacific? Was it, oh, Fiji? Palau? Tahiti?

Oh, no. The “island in the Pacific” is Hawaii, one of the 50 United States of America. Hawaii is governed by the very same federal government as all the rest of the states.

The object of the attorney general’s criticism, though, is a federal judge — a Hawaii native — who ruled against Donald J. Trump’s second travel ban that bars Muslims from several countries from entering the United States. The ruling came from U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson, who happens to live in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

Sessions blows that dog whistle

Hawaii’s two U.S. senators have reacted strongly to Sessions’ statement, made on talk show host Mark Levin’s program. The Huffington Post reported: “Sen. Mazie Hirono likened his remarks about Watson to ‘dog whistle politics.’” That identifies the kind of coded remarks meant to appeal mainly to certain segments of the population. Republicans and Democrats both have their “bases” that respond instinctively to certain political “dog whistles.”

The Huffington Post also reported: “In a statement later Thursday, Hirono, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that vets and confirms federal judges, called Sessions’ suggestion that Watson is somehow unable to carry out his duties impartially ‘dangerous, ignorant, and prejudiced.’

“’I am frankly dumbfounded that our nation’s top lawyer would attack our independent judiciary,’ she said. ‘But we shouldn’t be surprised. This is just the latest in the Trump Administration’s attacks against the very tenets of our Constitution and democracy.’”

I feel the need to stipulate once again: Hawaii isn’t some remote outpost. Judge Watson adheres to the same oath that the attorney general himself took when he joined the Justice Department.

These attacks on the “independent judiciary” have to stop.

Immediately!

legal news

Get ready for hot seat, Mr. Deputy AG-designate

Rod Rosenstein.

That name, right there, well might become the most-watched in Washington, D.C., behind — quite naturally — the name of the president of the United States.

Rosenstein has been picked by Donald J. Trump to become the deputy U.S. attorney general.

Why is this fellow so important right now? Because his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has recused himself from anything to do with an investigation into whether Trump was too cozy with Russian government officials. That means Rosenstein, by all accounts a hard-nosed prosecutor, will get to decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump-Russia matter.

Rosenstein’s confirmation hearing focused almost exclusively on Sessions, Trump and the Russians. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats sought to pin him down, trying to get him to commit to picking a special prosecutor. Rosenstein didn’t give that one up — to no one’s surprise.

Unlike Senate and House Republicans who say it’s “too early” to determine whether there’s a need for a special counsel, I happen to believe one should get the call. There needs to be a thorough investigation of what the president knew about the Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election, when he knew it, whether he colluded with the Russians. We also need to know whether Trump or someone from his campaign staff sought to renegotiate sanctions leveled against Russia by the Obama administration over the Russians’ meddling in our electoral process.

Rosenstein isn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill deputy AG. Folks in that job usually blend into the woodwork, never to be seen or heard from again once they take office.

Not this guy.

Assuming the Senate confirms him — and it should — Rosenstein is about to settle into one of the hottest seats in Washington.

Do the right thing, sir. Pick that special counsel.

legal news, national news, political news

Sessions needs to talk once more to Senate Judiciary panel

That’s it? The U.S. attorney general won’t have to testify any more to the Senate Judiciary Committee?

That’s the decision of Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said he has no plans to call AG Jeff Sessions back to Capitol Hill to explain himself.

It seems to me that the attorney general has some serious ‘splainin to do.

He told Judiciary Committee members during his confirmation hearing that he didn’t have any meetings with Russian government officials. Then, later, he thought differently about it said, yep, he did talk to the Russian ambassador to the United States.

This ought to be fleshed out a little bit.

What did he discuss? Did he talk to him about big things, such as, oh, whether the Russians were trying to influence the presidential election? Or how about whether the incoming Donald J. Trump administration would take back the sanctions that the Obama administration had leveled against the Russians for — that’s right — trying to influence the election.

Or … maybe it was just a casual conversation. “How’s the weather in Moscow in these days, Mr. Ambassador?”

Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat and one of the Judiciary panel members, wants Sessions to come back to The Hill to testify.

I think he should, too. Chairman Grassley surely cannot believe he’s heard all there is to hear from the attorney general.

legal news

President ‘furious’ over Sessions recusal? Settle down, sir

Donald John Trump reportedly is steamed that the attorney general has taken himself out of the Russia investigation game.

The president appears to have been furious with his staff and with AG Jeff Sessions over the AG’s decision to recuse himself from investigating possible illegalities involving the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had no contact with the Russians. Then it turns out he did; he then admitted as much.

That’s when he pulled out under mounting pressure from Republicans and Democrats.

What in the name of Watergate does the president fail to understand about the AG’s necessary decision to pull out of this probe?

Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself. Most of out us here — even those of us in the middle of Trump Country — understand that the attorney general has acted appropriately.

I am not going to join the amen chorus in calling for Sessions to quit … at least not yet. The AG needs to ensure that he stays totally clear of any discussions among the career prosecutors who work for him as they regard what they might find in the immediate future regarding Trump’s (alleged) relationship with the Russian government.

Trump’s supposed anger at Sessions, though, merely demonstrates — as if we need any more demonstrations — the president’s utter ignorance about propriety.

This tumult is far from over. My hope — certainly not my expectation — would be for the president of the United States to settle down and to let this massive apparatus called the “federal government” do what it’s designed to do.

It has a lot of moving parts and some of those parts now must find the truth behind whether the president’s campaign did anything illegal by negotiating with a government that our nation’s spy network says tried to influence a presidential election.

International news, legal news, national news, political news

Someone’s actually listening in Trump administration

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions did the right thing today: He has recused himself from any investigations involving the president of the United States and the Russian government.

As the late, great New York Yankees broadcaster Mel Allen would say: How ’bout that!

Sessions has come under withering attack over whether the Justice Department should be involved in these probes about whether the president and the Russian government had any improper or illegal contact during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The AG clearly was not the right man to lead such a probe. He’s a friend and close political ally of Donald J. Trump; he served on the president’s national security team during the campaign; he nominated him at the GOP convention this past summer.

No one could — or should — trust this AG to perform the kind of investigation that these questions about Trump require. He has backed out, to which I say: Good for you, Mr. Attorney General.

“I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign,” Sessions said at a hastily called press conference today.

Please note that he said he has “recused myself.” Is that good enough? I hope it is. I hope his recusal means that he won’t have any communication — not even in private — with the career prosecutors who might be working on this case … for the time being.

A better solution to this conflict of interest issue would be for the Justice Department to hand this matter over to an independent counsel, someone with zero ties to the administration. Congressional Democrats want that to happen; so, too, do a number of key congressional Republicans, which gives this notion some staying power.

It cannot be disputed with any degree of seriousness that the Russians sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. Trump has sought to disparage and discredit our intelligence community by saying it is wrong to draw that conclusion. His reaction has been disgraceful and disrespectful in the extreme.

The Kremlin denies any such wrongdoing. Show of hands: Who believes anything that comes out of the Kremlin? Me, neither.

The question many of us have is whether the Trump campaign team communicated with Russians before Trump took power, seeking to apply some leverage in lessening the sanctions that the Obama administration had placed on Russia over its interference with our electoral process.

I believe in my heart that such action could be defined as, let’s see, treasonous. We need to know what the top man — that would be Donald Trump — knew, when he knew it and whether he was a party to any of it.

legal news, national news, political news

Didn’t they impeach a president for doing this?

President Bill Clinton took an oath to obey all the laws of the land. He then became entangled in an investigation that turned up an inappropriate relationship with a White House intern. He was summoned to testify to a federal grand jury about that relationship, he swore to tell the truth and then, um, fibbed about it.

House Republicans were so outraged they impeached him for it, put him on trial in the Senate, where he eventually was acquitted.

All of that over a sex scandal. Sheesh!

Now a sitting U.S. attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has allegedly been caught in a much more serious lie of his own.

He took an oath to tell the truth to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings. He told senators he never had any conversations with Russian government officials during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Now comes reporting from “enemy of the people” media outlets that, yep, the AG did talk to the Russians.

Should he stay or should he go? Congressional Democrats want Sessions to quit. I won’t go that far just yet.

I do, though, believe the questions surrounding Sessions’s relationship with Donald J. Trump — they’re close friends and even closer political allies — disqualifies him from the get-go from pursuing any kind of unbiased, impartial and thorough investigation into the president’s relationship with Russia.

Some top Democrats want him out. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. What’s interesting to me and others is that a number of key Republicans have joined their Democratic “friends” in seeking Sessions’s recusal from any potential investigation.

The president, quite naturally, is going to label the reporting of Sessions’s contacts with the Russians as “fake news.” He’ll debunk reporters for the Washington Post and New York Times — who have been leading the media probe — as “dishonest” purveyors of fiction.

As one who once toiled the craft of journalism, although surely not at this level, I take great personal offense to Trump’s penchant for counterattack. Rather than reacting seriously and with measured calm, the nation’s head of state goes off on these rants about the media’s so-called status at the people’s “enemy.”

The attorney general has no business investigating whether the president had any kind of improper relationship with Russian government officials prior to his taking office. Whether he should remain on the job, well, that will have to be determined quickly.

I know that the law is designed to presume someone’s innocence. The world of politics, though, is a different animal altogether. In that world, the presumption often infers guilt and the accused must prove his or her innocence.

It might not always be fair. It’s just the way it is.

International news, national news, political news

It’s not too early to call for special prosecutor

The White House says it’s too early to call for a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s relationship with Russian government officials.

Actually, it’s not too early. Not at all.

At issue is whether U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should lead that probe. I don’t believe he should. Neither do congressional Democrats. Nor do a number of leading congressional Republicans.

We are entering some seriously rough waters as they regard the president of the United States.

Donald J. Trump has this curious man-crush on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose own government has been accused of trying to manipulate the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Intelligence organizations have declared that the Russians tried to hack into our political computer networks in that endeavor; Trump keeps denying it happened.

There is a compelling need to get to the truth. Sessions is too close, too friendly, too allied with Trump to be trusted to give such an investigation the push it needs.

White House spokespersons are calling on Congress to launch investigations. I, for one, am not sure I can trust Congress to conduct such a thorough, bipartisan probe; I point to the ridiculous investigation into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail “scandal,” which produced nothing on which to prosecute the former secretary of state.

This story has many alleys down which investigators should travel.

Did the president order former national security adviser Michael Flynn to talk to the Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions leveled against the Russians? When did Flynn lie to the vice president about those discussions and did the president know about it before the vice president knew? Was there a violation of the Logan Act prohibiting unauthorized agents from negotiating with foreign governments?

Who’s going to find the truth?

Special prosecutors aren’t a new concept. Congress has appointed them, they have produced riveting results.

Donald Trump might be in serious trouble. Then again, he might be as clean as he says he is.

Let’s turn a special prosecutor team loose to find the truth.

Now!