ABC: Sessions offered to resign as AG while Trump still fuming over his recusal https://t.co/92PNQAL6aP pic.twitter.com/WHZ0WHirwU
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) June 6, 2017
Jefferson Sessions took the job to gut civil rights and nonwhite immigration. Trump hired him to kill #Russiagate. https://t.co/GtmprnVY4u
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) June 6, 2017
Ms. Reid is, of course, correct: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III scrambled aboard the ‘Trump train’ early, because Trump seemed like his best chance for a position where he could really abuse all those uppity people of color / women / liberals with impunity. And Donald J. Trump welcomed the Malevolent Leprechaun aboard, because he assumed that their shared revanchist social goals would keep ol’ Jeff from looking too closely at Don’s myriad ethical peccadilloes.
Now Jeff feels that Trump is treating him like a house… servant, someone required to yes-massah the Big Man’s every whim. And Don feels like Sessions is attempting to weasel out of his contract, as so many of the losers and haters in Don’s past have attempted to do…
Few Republicans were quicker to embrace President Trump’s campaign last year than Jeff Sessions, and his reward was one of the most prestigious jobs in America. But more than four months into his presidency, Mr. Trump has grown sour on Mr. Sessions, now his attorney general, blaming him for various troubles that have plagued the White House.
The discontent was on display on Monday in a series of stark early-morning postings on Twitter in which the president faulted his own Justice Department for its defense of his travel ban on visitors from certain predominantly Muslim countries. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Sessions’s department of devising a “politically correct” version of the ban — as if the president had nothing to do with it.
In private, the president’s exasperation has been even sharper. He has intermittently fumed for months over Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal conversations. In Mr. Trump’s view, they said, it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation…
David B. Rivkin Jr., a lawyer who served in the White House and Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, said Mr. Trump clearly looked at the case from the lens of a businessman who did not get his money’s worth.
“He’s unhappy when the results don’t come in,” Mr. Rivkin said. “I’m sure he was convinced to try the second version, and the second iteration did not do better than the first iteration, so the lawyers in his book did not do a good job. It’s understandable for a businessman.”…
However, Mr. Trump is said to be aware that firing people now, on the heels of dismissing James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, would be risky. He has invested care and meticulous attention to the next choice of an F.B.I. director in part because he will not have the option of firing another one. The same goes for Mr. Sessions, these people said…
To quote an old saying: May they be chained to each other in hell.
Feels like an alt hed for this could be "Sessions Distances Self From Trump As Obstruction Investigations Progress" https://t.co/exDBDipjbc pic.twitter.com/OBEx4oPtf9
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) June 6, 2017
Trump is having such difficulty recruiting top-tier people that the threat to resign might be particularly potent right now. pic.twitter.com/XKMdtDP2ak
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) June 6, 2017
Two things – if Sessions was serious about resigning, he would have. And Trump isn't firing someone who would leave him with Rosenstein.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 7, 2017
Repubs in Disarray Open Thread: Sessions & Trump, Falling Out of LovePost + Comments (161)