Thread: Trump steps up attacks on Sessions and hints his days as attorney general are numbere

Trump steps up attacks on Sessions and hints his days as attorney general are numbered

By Don Lee
Aug 25, 2018 | 5:25 PM

President Trump has been warring with Jeff Sessions ever since the attorney general recused himself from the FBI investigation into Russian election meddling, which has led to the mounting legal problems for Trump and his associates as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III investigates potential collusion.

Now, in the wake of this week’s guilty plea from Trump’s one-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen, the tax fraud conviction of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and news that the Trump organization’s longtime chief financial officer may be cooperating with prosecutors, the president is stepping up his attacks against Sessions and appears to be laying the groundwork to fire the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Congressional Republicans, at one time solidified in their support for Sessions and strongly against his ouster, now look to be wavering — and that apparently has emboldened Trump to suggest he may soon take action.

In tweets Saturday morning, Trump again sought to distance himself from the Cohen case and implications that he did anything wrong, and he wrote: “Jeff Sessions said he wouldn’t allow politics to influence him only because he doesn’t understand what is happening underneath his command position. Highly conflicted Bob Mueller and his gang of 17 Angry Dems are having a field day as real corruption goes untouched. No Collusion!”

Trump then tweeted remarks made by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Friday when the senator was asked by Fox News about the acrimonious relations between Trump and Sessions: “Every President deserves an Attorney General they have confidence in. I believe every President has a right to their Cabinet, these are not lifetime appointments. You serve at the pleasure of the President.”
The latest from Washington »

Moments later, Trump brought up his long-running complaint that Sessions and the FBI had not done a proper job of investigating the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of private emails while she was secretary of State. Referring to a Fox report on the email scandal, Trump tweeted: “Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD. Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved!”

Whether his comment that he may get personally involved was referring to Sessions wasn’t clear, but the latest tweets reflect the president’s swelling agitation at the continuing and widening probe by Mueller. And in citing Graham’s remarks, Trump may have concluded that he has enough political space to remove Sessions.

Trump has made clear he wants to shut down the special counsel investigation, or at least refocus it on his political enemies, and Sessions is his biggest obstacle right now. But such a move would have major legal and political repercussions, raising the prospect to obstruction of justice and further jeopardizing several vulnerable Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

Another high-ranking GOP senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the chamber’s Judiciary Committee, also has signaled openness to replacing the attorney general. And conservative activists like Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the embattled Orange County congressman, are joining radio and television pundits on the right goading Trump on, accusing Sessions of disloyalty for refusing to shut down the Russia investigation.

Even so, a number of other Republican lawmakers, including the Senate GOP whip, John Cornyn of Texas, in recent days renewed their support for Sessions and essentially called on the president to back off.

Sen. Ben Sasses (R-Neb.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, warned he will not vote to confirm the attorney general’s replacement should Sessions be fired for refusing “to act as a partisan hack.” The conservative group Republicans for the Rule of Law has been running ads mocking Trump’s oft-stated claim that Mueller’s probe is a “witch hunt,” and warning the president not to interfere with the special counsel’s work.

Democrats, meanwhile, are demanding Congress pass legislation to shield the special counsel investigation from being disbanded by Trump or his administration, even as Republican leaders balk on advancing it.

“While I have opposed many of the actions taken by Attorney General Sessions, it would be unacceptable for the president to fire him now in order to install someone willing to subvert the Mueller investigation,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

The Republicans have argued throughout the probe that they are confident Trump would not try to interfere with it, and thus, they said, legislation protecting Mueller was unnecessary. Now, the president has complicated matters for them.

For Graham, a senior senator who sits on the Judiciary Committee, it was only a year ago that he had warned Trump against firing Sessions, saying that there would be “holy hell to pay” if Trump took such action.

But in reversing course this week, Graham said that while Sessions is a “fine man” and “has been a good attorney general,” his working relationship with Trump was neither sustainable nor profitable for the nation.

The president is “entitled to an attorney general he has faith in,” he told reporters.

Sessions, for his part, earlier in the week fired back at Trump’s criticisms. The former Alabama Republican senator and once one of Trump’s biggest supporters on Capitol Hill said that as long as he is attorney general, the Justice Department’s “actions will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.”

David M. Axelrod, a political consultant who was a top Obama advisor, said that for Sessions, the writing is on the wall — or in his case, Trump’s Saturday Twitter messages.

“One way or another, he’ll remove Sessions, relieve [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein of control of Russia-related matters and try to strangle the Mueller probe and other actions he views as existential crises,” Axelrod tweeted.

Trump’s own potentially legal and political troubles mounted this week after Cohen, his longtime fixer, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to eight felony counts, including for violations of campaign finance laws that involved hush money payments to two women who claimed they had had affairs with Trump. Cohen said that he had acted “in coordination with and at the direction of” a man, clearly identifiable as Trump, “for the principal purpose of influencing the election” for president in 2016.

On the same day, a jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. The Cohen case has put the spotlight on the Trump Organization’s finances, which could imperil the president and his family.

4:40 p.m.: This article was updated with additional background and comments from Charles E. Grassley, John Cornyn, Ben Sasse and Dianne Feinstein.

Don Lee covers the U.S. and global economy out of Washington, D.C. Since joining the Los Angeles Times in 1992, he has served as the Shanghai bureau chief and in various editing and reporting roles in California. He is a native of Seoul, Korea, and graduated from the University of Chicago.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...825-story.html

Attorney General Sessions needs to step in and stop this Witch Hunt. There is no Russia Collusion. Sessions knew that when he recused. He was part of the campaign, not a major player, but involved enough to know that Michael Flynn and Donald Trump are not traitors, they did not commit treason or espionage, they did not collude with Russia or any other foreign nation to win the election. Sessions should know that the Dossier is a fraud, devised by the FBI, to try and frame Donald Trump. Sessions should know that the FISA warrant on Carter Page was a fraud. Sessions should know that when the FBI didn't think Flynn was "lying to the FBI", then there is no admissible evidence that he was, and to extort a plea for something he didn't do is wrong. Sessions should know that any investigation related to or derived from the Russia Collusion Hoax is Fruit from the Poison Tree and both illegal and unconstitutional.

This is a crazed, maniacal, political witch hunt and while Sessions may have recused himself from the "Russia Investigation", he did not recuse himself as Attorney General. Sessions still has the clear cut OBLIGATION to protect the civil rights of these Americans from these types of malicious prosecutions which have nothing to do with the Russians, by shutting it all down immediately. The original investigation is a hoax and all these sideline prosecutions derive solely from that POISON TREE.

How did the DOJ even get Paul Manafort's tax returns and bank documents to begin with? Those are supposed to be private and only available with a warrant and probable cause. How did they get Cohen's? The DOJ tried to do something to Manafort on taxes years ago but didn't have any evidence of wrong doing. Now all these years later, suddenly they do? No, what they have is a fraud, a Special Counsel, a political witch hunt, with most Democrats on the jury, the 1 Republican gets overwhelmed with "signatures" on tax returns and bank documents, which mean nothing but are presented and interpreted as a "trail of evidence". When the IRS finds nothing wrong and the normal regular DOJ couldn't find anything wrong, then there is no wrong, just fabrications of wrong based on scared testimony from an terrified accountant (god knows what they told her to scare her into this) and that poor Rick Gates who stole from Manafort and would say anything to save his own skin, this is all wrong and the reason prosecutors have such high legal standards to meet is because jurors for the most part believe that prosecutors are good people, when generally they aren't. Every day they set their sights on a target, then build the case however they can with whatever they think they can get away with, true or not, to convict.

I feel so bad for these people like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Pappadopoulos and Michael Cohen. It's just a terrible thing all the way around because this isn't supposed to happen in our country. The only reason they've been indicted or charged with crimes is because they supported Donald Trump for President. For any American to think this is okay, you are 100% dead wrong. The day who you support for President or any other office is cause for the DOJ to investigate you for unknown crimes until they think they can fabricate one or more against you, is the day you lost your country.

It's a national disgrace what is going on and Sessions has full authority to stop it, recusal or not, because none of this has a damn thing to do with Russia, it has only to do with a corrupt and evil US Department of Justice waging war on Trump Supporters to try and get Trump impeached.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. All 100% Dead Wrong.

On the same day, a jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. The Cohen case has put the spotlight on the Trump Organization’s finances, which could imperil the president and his family.

No it won't. Donald Trump's tax returns are audited by the IRS every year for 12 or 13 years now. Why they started I don't know, he doesn't even know, but every year, he's audited, I think it started when he testified before Congress about changing tax laws in the middle of time periods where investors made decisions based on the tax treatment offered to induce the investment and then pulled the rug out from under them a year or so later causing the investors lots of problems. It was great testimony, he did a great job making the point of the problem and issue, so maybe that triggered it, maybe that's why he was targeted, I don't know. As to his financing, it's all real estate financing, all based on lender decisions to loan, lender appraisals, lender due diligence, and so forth. All real estate mortgages are recorded so this is already public information.

Also, the CFO at Trump Org already stated months ago that the payments to Cohen for the women NDA's were made from Trump's personal trust account and were not run through Trump Organization business accounts.

Poor corrupt media. They hope and hope and hope that Mueller will find some way to "imperil Trump and his family". Why? Because he won a Presidential election the media wanted him to lose and they think Mueller is their henchman to right the wrong.

SAD!!!

If Trump gets rid of Sessions, we're royally screwed. Hiring Sessions is the best move Trump ever made. Honestly, I would rather see Trump go rather than Sessions.

Originally Posted by 6 Million Dollar Man

If Trump gets rid of Sessions, we're royally screwed. Hiring Sessions is the best move Trump ever made. Honestly, I would rather see Trump go rather than Sessions.

There's two ways President Trump can lose my vote in 2020. The first is to sign an illegal alien amnesty bill and the other is to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. I agree that Sessions was Trump's best and most productive cabinet pick.