Trump Throws Sessions Under the Bus, and Everything Else You Needed to Know About Trump's Lack of Character

"WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Wednesday that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision “very unfair to the president.”

In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions’s decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Mr. Trump said."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...


Weirder and weirder...



LOST said:

Weirder and weirder...

One of the comments: 

"Does anyone else feel we are living in the pages of the book entitled Alice in Wonderland?"



Trump said that at his previously undisclosed meeting with Putin on July 7 they discussed pleasantries but Putin also discussed adoptions.

The NYT released its story about Donald Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer on July 8. 

Kind of strange that of all things that Putin could have talked about Trump says he talked about adoptions. Anyone believe him?


I think 'adoptions' is their code word for 'money laundering'.


Sessions isn't the only one Trump is whining about if this AP story can be believed. I have not yet read the interview.

In the interview, Trump also appeared to threaten Mueller, suggesting he had damaging information on the former FBI director.
Trump said Mueller's selection for the job was a conflict of interest because Trump had interviewed him to serve as the replacement FBI director.
"There were many other conflicts that I haven't said, but I will at some point," Trump said.
He lobbed similar conflict of interest charges at acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and accused former FBI Director James Comey of briefing him on a dossier of unverified, incriminating information in an effort to gain leverage over the soon-to-be president.

Its really sad to see what we've degraded down to and to see the many who support this.



BG9 said:


Its really sad to see what we've degraded down to and to see the many who support this.

The election of Trump was a Perfect Storm. It is a disaster and  a tragedy.



cramer said:



LOST said:

Weirder and weirder...

One of the comments: 

"Does anyone else feel we are living in the pages of the book entitled Alice in Wonderland?"

It's more like phantom of the opera. He seems to want to know how long it will take to corner him in checkmate.


Excerpts of the Times's Interview with Trump:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...  

Trump thinks that the FBI reports directly to him and only started reporting to the DOJ as a "courtesy" after Watergate: 

"TRUMP: And nothing was changed other than Richard Nixon came along. And when Nixon came along [inaudible] was pretty brutal, and out of courtesy, the F.B.I. started reporting to the Department of Justice. But there was nothing official, there was nothing from Congress. There was nothing — anything. But the F.B.I. person really reports directly to the president of the United States, which is interesting. You know, which is interesting. And I think we’re going to have a great new F.B.I. director."


couldn't his claim actually be true?

I've always thought it a bit odd that the FBI reports to the AG and not the Prez.

I wonder where the line of authority is actually spelled out?

cramer said:

Excerpts of the Times's Interview with Trump:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...  


Trump thinks that the FBI reports directly to him and only started reporting to the DOJ as a "courtesy" after Watergate: 


"TRUMP: And nothing was changed other than Richard Nixon came along. And when Nixon came along [inaudible] was pretty brutal, and out of courtesy, the F.B.I. started reporting to the Department of Justice. But there was nothing official, there was nothing from Congress. There was nothing — anything. But the F.B.I. person really reports directly to the president of the United States, which is interesting. You know, which is interesting. And I think we’re going to have a great new F.B.I. director."



The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the FBI, the United States' primary federal law enforcement agency, and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI Director is appointed for a single 10-year term by the President and confirmed by the Senate.[1][2][3] The FBI is an agency of the Department of Justice.[4] Since the 1920s, the FBI has been supervised by the Department of Justice and the FBI Director has answered to the Attorney General. The Director briefed the President on any issues that arose from within the FBI until the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was enacted following the September 11 attacks. Since then, the Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence, who in turn reports to the President.[5]


Trump wants to get rid of Mueller. Mueller is getting too close to Trump's dealings. Hence the threat. 

By throwing Sessions under the bus, Trump hopes Sessions will resign and Trump gets to appoint a new AG, who doesn't have to recuse himself from Russia matters. 

Trump is sending signals to his FBI appointee, Christopher Wray, that if he doesn't play ball with Trump, he's gone. And yes, Wray did say when asked during his hearings that wouldn't give a loyalty oath to the President, saying that his loyalty is the US and the Constitution. 

A Wednesday night massacre. 


There will be another FBI shuffle, and McConnell will accept it.


"And short of firing Mueller and shutting down his investigation, Trump—who is the first president in 40 years to refuse to make his tax returns public, despite once promising to do so— would have almost no way of stopping him. In fact, the prosecutors said, the president and his lawyers would not necessarily even know that Mueller had obtained them."
http://www.politico.com/magazi...


cramer said:

Trump said that at his previously undisclosed meeting with Putin on July 7 they discussed pleasantries but Putin also discussed adoptions.

The NYT released its story about Donald Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer on July 8. 

Kind of strange that of all things that Putin could have talked about Trump says he talked about adoptions. Anyone believe him?

Trump told the NYT that adoptions were something that came up with Don Jr. The reason that I highlighted the dates is that Trump's meeting with Putin (July 7) occurred before the NYT broke the story about Don Jr. on July 8.

 


The "adoptions" discussion is really Putin asking for sanctions to be removed. Trump is being disingenuous by only describing the discussion as about "adoptions". He is probably aware that his supporters have no clue that he's doing that. 


For me personally the adoption issue is a major one and I would love to see the ban lifted. But I know that most people have no clue about the issue and do not care about it at all.


Sessions is getting to do many things he dreamed of for years as AG. I expect that in spite of attacks and indignities from Trump he will hold on until Trump explicitly asks him to go so he can do as much of the things he has long wanted as he can.



Gilgul said:

For me personally the adoption issue is a major one and I would love to see the ban lifted. But I know that most people have no clue about the issue and do not care about it at all.

A little googling found this article "How to Restore U.S. Adoptions of Russian Children" dated June 1, 2017. The writer says that restoration of American adoptions of Russian children is the logical first-step in improving U.S. -Russia relations. It may well be that this was discussed between Trump and Putin. But until Trump releases his tax returns or Mueller completes his investigation, Trump's reason for wanting better relations can't be trusted. If Trump fires Mueller Trump will never have to release his tax returns. 

http://globalinterests.org/201...



Gilgul said:

For me personally the adoption issue is a major one and I would love to see the ban lifted. But I know that most people have no clue about the issue and do not care about it at all.

The ban is entirely voluntary on Moscow's part. They could lift it today if they wanted, but they want the Magnitsky Act lifted as a quid pro quo. 

I kind of wonder if Trump Jr had a clue what his meeting about. Maybe the Russians had good dirt on Clinton, were willing to hand it over if Papa Trump could agree to repealing the Magnitsky act, but Junior just heard some broad waffling about adoptions and **** and switched off so the Russians just kept it. 

It could explain why Papa Trump was so excited about calling a big press conference on Clinton later that day which never materialized and when it finally did it contained nothing we didn't already know.


Believe me I know all the details of the ban. The Magnitsky Act may have been Russia's McGuffin to actually implement the ban but the issues behind the ban go far deeper. Fundamentally Russia considers the children adopted from Russia to still be Russian citizens and so they want continued oversight and the ability to intervene while the U.S. government considers them to the Americans and will not give any foreign nation any powers.  



Gilgul said:

Believe me I know all the details of the ban. The Magnitsky Act may have been Russia's McGuffin to actually implement the ban but the issues behind the ban go far deeper. Fundamentally Russia considers the children adopted from Russia to still be Russian citizens and so they want continued oversight and the ability to intervene while the U.S. government considers them to the Americans and will not give any foreign nation any powers.  

That makes sense now. I never quite understood why that was their reaction to the Magnitsky Act. It seemed pretty darned random. Thanks. I actually learned something today.


I'm guessing Trump wants to goad him to quit because he knows that the political cost of firing him would be catastrophic.   


I don't know, is Gary Busey available?


Trump picked Sessions believing Sessions would have his back. Then Sessions, under pressure for his Russia connections, recuses himself. Trump no longer has an ally in Justice, who puts loyalty ahead of constitutional duty. Rosenstein, the number 2 at Justice is not a Trump loyalist. And the fact that Trump threatens Mueller to stay away from Trump family finances is one more piece of circumstantial evidence indicating Trump is hiding something. 


BTW, anyone read that regulators assessing why Deutsche Bank, which paid a hefty fine for Russian money laundering,  provided hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Trump businesses despite bankruptcies that made other institutions wary. 

https://tinyurl.com/ycgc4psu


If Sessions has not yet resigned he has no self-respect.


Trump wants Sessions to resign so that he can appoint an AG who doesn't have to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and who Trump can count on to remove Mueller. 

"But could he legally squash the investigation if he wanted to?
Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation, the decision to appoint a special counsel fell to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. In his order making the appointment, Rosenstein cited federal regulations issued by the attorney general in 1999, 28 C.F.R. § 600.4-600.10. The rules were drafted in the wake of the Kenneth Starr investigation of President Bill Clinton.
According to those regulations, a special counsel “may be disciplined or removed from office only by the personal action of the Attorney General” (or in this case, the acting attorney general). And Rosenstein can’t just do it on a whim, either. According to the regulation, special counsel can only be removed “for misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause, including violation of Departmental policies.”
In a Senate hearing on June 13, Rosenstein said he alone exercises firing authority, and that he had not seen any evidence of good cause for firing Mueller.
“It’s certainly theoretically possible that the attorney general could fire him, but that’s the only person who has authority to fire him,” Rosenstein said. “And in fact, the chain of command for the special counsel is only directly to the attorney general, in this case the acting attorney general.” 
http://www.factcheck.org/2017/... 

In the alternative, Trump is setting the stage for Rosentein to fire Mueller on grounds that Mueller had conflicts of interest or was exceeding his jurisdiction.  Rosenestein appeared on Fox News last night: 

http://insider.foxnews.com/201...



This is all just an episode of "The Political Apprentice", except the chosen "Apprentice" is the one doing the firing.



jimmurphy said:

This is all just an episode of "The Political Apprentice", except the chosen "Apprentice" is the one doing the firing.

+1 



will Tillerson be next, given Exxon's fines for breaking sanctions under his watch?? Serious question; Tillerson has always made me shudder.


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