Thread: Could Jeff Sessions be moved to the Department of Homeland Security?

Could Jeff Sessions be moved to the Department of Homeland Security?

By Alex Pappas Published July 29, 2017 Fox News

Could Attorney General Jeff Sessions end up at the Department of Homeland Security?

It’s an idea some political observers have been debating after President Trump announced Friday that John Kelly, who leads the department, would replace Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff.

Here’s how the theory goes: The president has been lashing out at Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia meddling investigation. Sessions would be able to continue his work against illegal immigration as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

And then the president would appoint someone else to the Department of Justice who would then fire Robert Mueller as special counsel in the Russia probe.

Dana Perino, the former White House press secretary under George W. Bush, argued such an arrangement could placate conservatives who would be outraged if Sessions was ousted from the administration.

“Conservatives that came to Jeff Sessions’ defense this week all said, ‘But he’s doing the best on the issue we care about most and that is immigration.’ Well, where can Jeff Sessions do even more on immigration? As the secretary of Homeland Security,” Perino said Friday on Fox News’ “The Five.”

She added, “And then how can the conservatives complain? And then you have a new AG, [the president] thinks, who can fire Mueller.”

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 13, 2017, as he testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about his role in the firing of James Comey, his Russian contacts during the campaign and his decision to recuse from an investigation into possible ties between Moscow and associates of President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)


But one Republican senator is already opposing the idea.

“DHS Secretary Jeff Sessions doesn't sound right, doesn't feel right,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted Saturday. “Bad idea.”

Graham also said, “AG Jeff Sessions has a good ring to it. Highly qualified, committed to the rule of law, tough on crime, and fiercely independent.”

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Lindsey Graham
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DHS Secretary Jeff Sessions doesn't sound right, doesn't feel right.

Bad idea. (2/2) https://twitter.com/politico/status/891333530780934144 …
10:15 AM - Jul 29, 2017

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AG Jeff Sessions has a good ring to it.

Highly qualified, committed to the rule of law, tough on crime, and fiercely independent. (1/2) https://twitter.com/politico/status/891333530780934144 …
10:14 AM - Jul 29, 2017

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KELLY, NEW WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF, HAILED AS 'STAR OF THE ADMINISTRATION'

Such a move would not be popular with liberals either.

“To be clear: appointing Jeff Sessions to replace John Kelly at DHS to disrupt the Russia investigation would be met with MASS RESISTANCE,” Zac Petkanas, a Democratic strategist who previously worked for Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, tweeted Saturday.

Politico cited two sources saying the idea of Sessions being moved to DHS has been talked about among department staffers. But the outlet also said a Trump administration source called the possibility unlikely.

A spokesman for DHS said Friday that Kelly remains secretary of the department until Monday when Elaine Duke, the deputy secretary, will become acting secretary. The president will then nominate a new leader for the department.

A White House spokesman referred questions about Sessions to the Department of Justice. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...-security.html

Is Trump playing a game of Chess...among the Checkers players?

Everything Trump does has a reason, so we'll see. Personally, I think Sessions would be better at the Department of Homeland Security than at Justice Department. Two different set of Swamp Rats in those departments, and I don't think Sessions personality can deal effectively with the Swamp Rats in the Justice Department. Anyway, lets see what happens, but I would totally support that change.

Then move Anthony Scarramucci to the Attorney General position. That guy will take no prisoners. He'll clean out in a nano-second and prosecute all of those sleazy slimey leakers.

Radio Sputnik is spewing Russian Propaganda in D.C.

Kristol: Scaramucci may not be around long


Bill Kristol tells CNN's Erin Burnett that he would not be surprised if White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci is ousted from his position.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/...ong/vp-AAoWnJ6

Sen. Coons: Trump 'Playing Checkers' Against Russia's Game of Chess

(MSNBC/"Morning Joe")
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Friday, 21 Jul 2017 12:12 PM

President Donald Trump is "playing checkers" with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while Putin is using all the tools Russia has to "play chess" with the United States, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons said Friday.

"I think it's important for us to remember that Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov are very experienced players on the world stage," the Democratic senator told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.

"This is the fourth American president with whom they've had the opportunity to work."

Putin, said Coons, is a "skilled former KGB agent," while Trump is "not on the same board" with him.

Coons pointed to a column in The Washington Post that claims Trump has already surrendered to Russia when it comes to Syria.

"It points out some of the consequences of unilaterally walking away from the Syrian opposition," Coons said. "It's been trained and equipped by the CIA over recent years."

The column also questions the idea that the United States would make concessions to Russia without getting anything in return, said Coons, and how the resulting weakness will affect the U.S. role in the Middle East, in Western Europe and throughout the world.

"We've got significant challenges around the world," said Coons. "We're not talking about North Korea. We're not talking about finding ways to move China toward reining in the nuclear program.

"We're talking about how we're on the retreat in the face of Russian assertion or aggressiveness, whether it's on the eastern edge of NATO or in the Middle East in Syria."

Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also discussed an invitation made to Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to testify next week about their meeting with a Russian attorney and several other Russians at Trump Tower last June.

He said he is sure they'll come for the hearing, set on Wednesday.

He noted that both committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have said they'll subpoena Trump Jr. and Manafort if they don't come in willingly.

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/chri.../21/id/803058/

George H. W. Bush was a former Director of the CIA. So what if Putin was a KGB officer? We've got former CIA people all over the news and in business and trying to be in politics, if they were undercover, we'd never even know they were former CIA.

Senate GOP steps up defense of Sessions

BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 07/29/17 01:51 PM EDT 2,386

© Getty Images

Senate Republicans are getting more aggressive in fighting back at President Trump’s attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says there will be “hell to pay” if Sessions is fired, while Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, warned he won’t hold hearings to confirm a successor to Sessions.

“The agenda for the judiciary [committee] is set for the rest of 2017. Judges first subcabinet 2nd/ AG no way,” he tweeted.

Senate Republicans also quickly slammed the door on the possibility that Trump could use recess appointment powers to get around Grassley.“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, who said Republicans will hold pro-forma sessions every few days to block Trump from making recess appointments.

“If we have to stay in session to protect Sessions, we’d do so,” he said.

Trump’s rough treatment of Sessions, who was the first senator to endorse his presidential campaign last year — and for months was the only member of the upper chamber to back his unorthodox candidacy — has unsettled many Republican senators.

It’s more evidence of what they see as the president’s mercurial nature and his disdain for Washington’s conventions.

A senior GOP aide said Trump’s consideration of a recess appointment to replace Sessions was completely out of step with the Senate recent tradition of holding pro-forma sessions every few days of a break to prevent such action.

If the chamber convenes every few days — even for a few minutes — then it is not, technically, on recess and, therefore, the president cannot make recess appointments.

The heated back-and-forth between Trump and Republican senators over Sessions came at a delicate moment, as Senate GOP leaders sought to win passage of an ObamaCare repeal bill. Their effort failed after three Republicans — all of whom have tangled with Trump — voted against it.

Trump’s rhetoric appears to have hurt more than helped him with senators.

“This effort to basically marginalize and humiliate the attorney general is not going over well in the Senate. I don’t think it’s going over well in the conservative world,” Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters Thursday. “If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.”

Grassley’s move found few if any critics in the GOP conference. In fact, many rushed to back him up. One GOP senator called his tweet “masterful.”

The use of pro forma sessions to block recess appointments isn’t unusual.

Then Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) insisted on such pro-forma sessions in 2007 to block President George W. Bush from making recess appointments and Republicans did the same under President Obama.

What’s unusual here, is that Republicans are vowing to use the tactic to thwart a president from their own party.

Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), one of the Senate’s most senior Republicans, said Trump’s criticism of Sessions is out of line.

“It’s a mistake for the president. I don’t think you should be brutalizing Sessions or anybody, someone who’s been loyal to him,” said Shelby, who often worked closely with Sessions when he served in the Senate.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his frustration and disappointment with Sessions for recusing himself from the Department of Justice’s investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.

Senate Republicans, however, are defending his decision, noting he followed department guidelines.

Sessions served as a senior advisor to Trump’s campaign.

“I would hope the president would want Sessions to stay on because I think ultimately he did the right thing in recusing himself,” Shelby added.

Republicans are acting partly out of friendship to Sessions but also out of concern that Trump may be laying the groundwork to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is leading the investigation of possible collusion between Russian agents and Trump’s inner circle of family and advisers.

They worry Trump might pick a new attorney general who would go on to dismiss Mueller.

Graham warned that such a move could provoke a constitutional crisis.

He is working on legislation would require judicial review of any presidential decision to fire a special counsel to determine whether it complied with the law.

He predicted it would have a large number of Republican and Democratic co-sponsors.

“Any effort to go after Mueller could be beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong. Right now I have no reason to believe Mueller is compromised,” Graham warned.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...se-of-sessions

Republicans are acting partly out of friendship to Sessions but also out of concern that Trump may be laying the groundwork to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is leading the investigation of possible collusion between Russian agents and Trump’s inner circle of family and advisers.

They worry Trump might pick a new attorney general who would go on to dismiss Mueller.

Why would Republicans be upset if a new AG dismissed Mueller? It would save us a lot of money being spent on nothing-burgers. People have to remember why there is a Mueller to begin with. It's because of a fabricated memo leaked to the press by former FBI Director, James Comey to incite that action because he was upset that Trump didn't fall for the Fake Trump Dossier Comey presented to him, in private by the way before Trump was inaugurated, the one John McCain supposedly received in the mail and delivered to the FBI, and eventually fired him. Oh Puleeze!!! This is not probable cause for a Special Counsel, this isn't even reasonable suspicion for an inquiry, this is a Comey sour grapes, get even, nothing-burger.

Originally Posted by Judy

Everything Trump does has a reason, so we'll see. Personally, I think Sessions would be better at the Department of Homeland Security than at Justice Department. Two different set of Swamp Rats in those departments, and I don't think Sessions personality can deal effectively with the Swamp Rats in the Justice Department. Anyway, lets see what happens, but I would totally support that change.

Then move Anthony Scarramucci to the Attorney General position. That guy will take no prisoners. He'll clean out in a nano-second and prosecute all of those sleazy slimey leakers.

Scarramacci would be a horrible Attorney General for our country! What would even make him qualified for such a position? Being AG requires more than being a foul-mouthed rich boy crony of Jared Kushner's.

I personally think Jeff Sessions is doing a great job for us right where he is. Being shuffled to the DHS job would be a demotion and serious slap in the face. Sessions is a former lawyer and judge and is well qualified for the post he currently holds.