Tag: Jeff Sessions

Majority say Trump fired Sessions because he wanted loyal attorney general to oversee Mueller probe

A majority of registered voters say they believe President Trump fired Jeff Sessions because he wanted an attorney general who was loyal to him to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller‘s probe into Russian election interference, according to a new American Barometer survey.

The poll, conducted by Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, found that 66 percent of respondents said Trump fired Sessions in order to get a loyal attorney general to oversee the probe, while 34 percent said Sessions was fired because he was not an effective attorney general.

The survey also revealed a partisan divide, with 61 percent of Republicans saying Sessions was fired because he was not an effective attorney general and 87 percent of Democrats saying he was fired because Trump wanted a loyal attorney general to oversee the investigation.

View the complete November 12 article on The Hill website here.

Watergate’s John Dean Explains How Trump Planned Sessions’ Firing ‘Like a Murder’ — And Details How Mueller Could Protect the Probe

Trump’s move on Wednesday was both predictable and shocking.

John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel who eventually turned against his boss in the Watergate scandal, has a unique perspective on investigations of presidents.

After President Donald Trump announced the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, to be replaced by a person who had been publicly critical of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016, Dean called in to CNN to give his opinion.

Dean said the firing of Sessions was “planned like a murder. I say that given that the president was asked a question at the press conference this morning, he brushed it off, said ‘We’ll deal with it later.’ And he’s clearly been thinking about it — and ‘later’ meant he’s not necessarily going to fire Mueller, he’s going to undercut him by the people around him.”

View the complete November 7 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet.org website here.

Sessions out at Justice Department

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned as the top Justice Department official at President Trump’s request, a development that is likely to spark a firestorm of criticism following the midterm elections.

The decision punctuates months of criticism by President Trump of his top law enforcement officer over his recusal from the ongoing Russia investigation. And it confirms widespread speculation that Trump would move to fire Sessions sometime after the midterms.

Sessions agreed to resign at Trump’s request, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by The Hill.

View the complete November 7 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Justice Dept. Rank-and-File Tell of Discontent Over Sessions’s Approach

Justice Department lawyers have raised concerns about Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursuing legally indefensible cases and a lack of support when they tried to warn him. Credit: Doug Mills, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — During his 20 months in office, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has swept in perhaps the most dramatic political shift in memory at the Justice Department, from the civil rights-centered agenda of the Obama era to one that favors his hard-line conservative views on immigration, civil rights and social issues.

Now, discontent and infighting have taken hold at the Justice Department, in part because Mr. Sessions was so determined to carry out that transformation that he ignored dissent, at times putting the Trump administration on track to lose in court and prompting high-level departures, according to interviews over several months with two dozen current and former career department lawyers who worked under Mr. Sessions. Most asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

President Trump has exacerbated the dynamic, they said, by repeatedly attacking Mr. Sessions and the Justice Department in baldly political and personal terms. And he has castigated rank-and-file employees, which career lawyers said further chilled dissent and debate within the department.

View the complete October 19 article by Katie Benner on the New York Times website here.

Southern Republican senators reject Trump’s criticism of Sessions

The following article by Gabriel Pogrund was posted on the Washington Post website September 4, 2018:

President Trump and Bob Woodward discuss Woodward’s new book, “Fear,” before its publication. (The Washington Post)

Southern Republican senators defended Jeff Sessions after an explosive new book by Bob Woodward recounted how President Trump called his attorney general a “dumb Southerner” and mocked his accent.

In the forthcoming chronicle of Trump’s White House, “Fear,” Woodward writes that the president privately called Sessions a “traitor,” saying: “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner . . . He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”

The remarks are said to have come during a conversation between Trump and his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, about Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the Russian investigation. They represent the most withering insults the president has directed at his attorney general in months of largely one-sided sniping.

View the complete article here.

‘Two easy wins now in doubt’: Trump renews attack on Sessions

The following article by Josh Dawsey was posted on the Washington Post website September 3, 2018:

Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press

President Trump attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department on Monday in connection with the indictments of two GOP congressmen on corruption charges, saying they could hurt the Republican Party in the midterm elections.

“Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,” he said on Twitter. “Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time.”

“Good job Jeff……” he added, in a sarcastic comment. Calling the agency the “Jeff Sessions Justice Department” is the president’s ultimate insult, Trump advisers say.

View the complete article here.

Former Trump adviser Papadopoulos asks judge to spare him jail time

The following article by Spencer S. Hsu and Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website September 1, 2018:

Trump officials have tried to cast George Papadopoulos as a low-level figure on the campaign, but documents show extensive contact with top campaign officials. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Candidate Donald Trump “nodded with approval” when a former campaign adviser suggested a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin in 2016, according to a court filing by lawyers seeking a lighter sentence for the adviser, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts during the campaign.

The description of the meeting with Trump and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions was revealed Friday in the filing, which argued that George Papadopoulos should be spared jail time because his lies did not hinder the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In the filing, the attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to put Papadopoulos on probation at his sentencing, which is set for Friday. They said claims that his falsehoods impeded prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III were “speculative and contrary to the evidence.”

View the complete article here.

Donald Trump’s approval rating sinks to lowest of his presidency

The following article by Joanna Walters was posted on the Guardian website August 31, 2018:

New survey shows first time the national displeasure rating has exceeded 50%, and a majority of support for Mueller’s Russia investigation

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Indiana. Credit: Mandel Ngan, AFP, Getty Images

Donald Trump has slumped to the lowest approval rating of his presidency, with 60% disapproving of his performance as the US president, according to a new national survey.

The figure includes 53% who say they disapprove strongly of his performance in the White House, the first time the national displeasure rating has exceeded 50%, according to a new ABC/Washington Post poll published on Friday morning.

The poll also found that a majority support the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and think Trump should not fire the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

View the complete article here.

Trump personally lobbying GOP senators to flip on Sessions

The following article by Eliana Johnson and Elana Schor was posted on the Politico.com website August 29, 2018:

Opposition to the attorney general’s firing, long seen as a red line by lawmakers, has softened in recent days.

The president, who has spent a year and a half fulminating against his attorney general in public, finally got traction on Capitol Hill thanks to the growing frustration of a handful of GOP senators with their former colleague, Jeff Sessions. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The willingness of Republican senators to turn on Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the result of a furious lobbying campaign from President Donald Trump, who for the past 10 days has been venting his anger at Sessions to “any senator who will listen,” as one GOP Senate aide put it.

The president, who has spent a year and a half fulminating against his attorney general in public, finally got traction on Capitol Hill thanks to the growing frustration of a handful of GOP senators with their former colleague – most importantly, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, who have been irritated by Sessions’ opposition to a criminal justice reform bill they support, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen congressional GOP aides, Trump advisers, and Republicans close to the White House. Continue reading “Trump personally lobbying GOP senators to flip on Sessions”

Want to Know More About: Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Alisyn Camerota: “The President Has Been Lobbying Senators To Get Them Comfortable It Sounds Like Or To Get Them On His Side If He’s Going To Fire Jeff Sessions, The Attorney General.” ALISYN CAMEROTA: “Somebody else monitoring Twitter to see if he still has a job each morning is attorney general Jeff Sessions. We assume he wakes up as well and checks the Twitter feed. We know from new reporting that the president has been lobbying senators to get them comfortable it sounds like or to get them on his side if he’s going to fire Jeff sessions, the attorney general.” [New Day, CNN, 8/30/18; Video]

Jeffery Toobin: “This Has Enormous Significance Because If Jeff Sessions Is Replaced By Someone Who Won’t Have A Conflict Of Interest Regarding The Mueller Investigation, This Person Will Take Over From Rod Rosenstein As The Supervisor And Potential Firer Of Robert Muller.” JEFFERY TOOBIN: “Of course, this has enormous significance because if Jeff Sessions is replaced by someone who won’t have a conflict of interest regarding the Mueller investigation, this person will take over from Rod Rosenstein as the supervisor and potential firer of Robert Muller.” [New Day, CNN, 8/30/18; Video]