The President Is Treating His Attorney General Shamefully
On Tuesday morning, President Trump slammed his own attorney general on Twitter for taking “a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes . . . & Intel leakers!” That rationale is a sham: On the Clinton scandals, Sessions has merely followed Trump himself, who said in late November that he had no plans to pursue an investigation of his erstwhile opponent. In reality, Trump is reported to be upset at Sessions for needlessly recusing himself from the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia, which Trump believes led to the special-counsel investigation.
The story Trump is telling himself is convenient for creating a scapegoat, but it’s also largely untrue. Sessions may not have been legally obligated to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry, but there was a strong political case for his doing so. The more direct cause of the appointment of a special counsel was the unceremonious firing of FBI director James Comey, and the deception surrounding it — which was a mess largely of Trump’s own making.