What could happen if Donald Trump sacks his attorney-general
.. PERHAPS the only reason to doubt Donald Trump is contemplating sacking his attorney-general, Jeff Sessions, in order to protect himself and his associates from the counter-espionage investigation being run by Robert Mueller, is that the president has been so astonishingly upfront about it... Yet Mr Trump’s history of rule-breaking suggested he was indeed weighing a measure that would pitch his scandal-plagued presidency into its biggest crisis yet... it is also reasonable to assume that the president’s problem with Mr Sessions does not really concern the fact that he let the probe happen so much as that, because of his recusal, he cannot end it... The president has suggested some members of the counsel’s team of a dozen top-notch investigators are “conflicted”, perhaps because of past donations to Democrats (though Mr Trump was once a donor to them too)... the president will understand that sacking Mr Mueller, after first sacking Mr Sessions, would spark a backlash. How seriously he is contemplating it must therefore depend on how worried he is about what Mr Mueller might find.
Sessions’ powerful friends stand up to Trump
The attorney general’s former colleagues in Congress, as well as conservative allies, publicly questioned the president’s attacks on Sessions.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was among Sessions’ most vocal defenders Wednesday, when he seemed to almost be taunting the president, suggesting that his failure to fire Sessions showed weakness, while also hinting that the impact of such a move could be catastrophic for Trump’s presidency.
“He’s trying to get Sessions to quit and I hope Sessions doesn’t quit. If the president wants to fire him, fire him,” Graham said. “I think anybody who’s strong would use the power they have and be confident in his decision. Strong people say: ‘I’ve decided this man or woman can’t serve me well and I’m going to act accordingly and take the consequence.’ To me weakness is when you play around the edges and don’t use the power you have.”One conservative activist said that an effort is underway to coordinate and amplify such statements because of fears that Trump doesn’t understand the blow his administration and the conservative movement would suffer if Sessions departs.
.. Is this fight to have right now? The danger of this fight with General Sessions is he’s not only a loyal supporter of the president which sends a bad message to supporters, but he’s also getting the job done,” said the source, referring to Session’s initiatives on such issues as illegal immigration and toughening criminal sentencing.
.. Numerous prominent conservative voices have publicly rallied to Sessions side, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), former Trump transition domestic policy chief and Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.
.. Gingrich said on NPR early Wednesday. “I think that Jeff Sessions, in fact, was one of his earliest and most loyal supporters. I think Jeff Sessions is a solid conservative. I think, yeah, you can argue either way. I mean, even a guy like Rudy Giuliani, who’s very pro-Trump, said he would have recused himself.”.. The senators view Trump’s treatment of their former colleague as “offensive,” the source said... Some GOP senators also fear that if Trump pushes Sessions out, the results could be dire for Trump. Such a development might lead to mass resignations at the Justice Department and it might be impossible to find a majority in the Senate to confirm a replacement for Sessions, the source added... the president took another shot at Sessions Wednesday morning, faulting him for failing to remove acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.“Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!” Trump tweeted... Trump’s statement was puzzling because the president has the authority to name an acting FBI director and the White House publicly toyed with the idea of bringing in another FBI official to replace McCabe, but never did so.
.. Senior White House strategist Steve Bannon is the moving force in the effort to persuade Trump to back away from his public salvos at Sessions
.. American should be troubled by the character of a person who humiliates and turns his back on a close friend after only six months.
.. Schumer—who in March called for Sessions to resign over his contacts with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak
.. “Only Trump could make Sessions into a sympathetic figure,” said James Gagliano, a former FBI agent in New York and an adjunct professor of leadership studies at St. Johns University. “It’s unifying some factions I don’t think would ever have unified. Maybe he is a unifier.”
A Trump Tower of Absolute Folly
.. To the extent that any figure in the Trump administration both embodies “Trumpism” and seems capable of executing its policy ambitions, it is Sessions, who is using his office to strictly enforce immigration laws and pursue an old-school law-and-order agenda.
You may hate his agenda (as most liberals do) or dislike parts of it (as I do), but it is clearly the agenda that Trump ran on, and the attorney general’s office is one of the few places where it is being effectively pursued.
.. So cashiering Sessions would be a remarkable statement (though hardly the first) that the president cares almost nothing for his own alleged platform and governing philosophy.
.. It demonstrates a level of disloyalty that should send sane people running from Trump’s service, it tells other cabinet members to get out while the getting’s good (and to leak and undermine like crazy on their way), and it further alienates Republican senators whom Trump needs to confirm appointees (including any Sessions replacement) and to go easy on his scandals.
.. Trump’s war on Sessions is one of the few things short of a recession that could hurt him with his base
.. But the Trumpian core also includes conservatives who like Sessions for ideological reasons, who trust Trump in part because Sessions vouched for him, and who don’t like or trust very many other people (the family, the New Yorkers, the ex-Democrats) in Trump’s inner circle. Which is why Trump’s campaign against Sessions has already brought him negative coverage from Breitbart, Tucker Carlson and various pro-Trump or anti-anti-Trump pundits — making it an extraordinary act of political malpractice from a White House that lacks a cushion for such follies.
.. This blame-Sessions perspective is warped, since it was Trump’s decision to fire James Comey (an earlier monumental folly) that was actually decisive in putting Robert Mueller on the case.
.. Trump’s logic is a straightforward admission that he wants to eject his attorney general because Sessions has not adequately protected him from legal scrutiny — an argument that at once reveals Trump’s usual contempt for laws and norms and also suggests (not for the first time) that he has something so substantial to hide that only omerta-style loyalty will do.
.. no hatchet man will win easy confirmation, and until Sessions is replaced the acting attorney general will be Ron Rosenstein, the man who appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel in the first place!
.. So it’s basically madness all the way to the top: bad policy, bad strategy, bad politics, bad legal maneuvering, bad optics, a self-defeating venture carried out via deranged-as-usual tweets and public insults.
.. Imagine, if you will, that George W. Bush had started acting like Donald Trump partway into his second term …. Is there any question that people would be talking about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him? Not for political reasons, but because it would be obvious that some tragic mental impairment had befallen the commander in chief.
Adults of mature years know not to engage in histrionic self-pity in public, not necessarily because they avoid self-pity, but because outside of high school parties, this is a singularly ineffective way to make people like and support you. Competent leaders do not preside over staff who are leaking what is essentially one long and anguished primal scream to any reporter they can get to hold still. Seasoned professionals do not, suddenly and for no apparent reason, say things in public that make them better targets for legal investigations …
And so the only possible explanation for such a quick succession of stunning lapses in judgment would be a severe stroke, an aggressive brain tumor or some other neurological disaster that had rendered him unfit to continue in office, at least until it could be treated. I don’t even think this would be controversial, even among his supporters.
The poor members of Trump World
Poor Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He is latest to the firing line that has included such formerlys as FBI director James B. Comey, national security adviser Michael Flynn and acting attorney general Sally Yates, as well as the “voluntarily resigned” — press secretary Sean Spicer and communications director Michael Dubke.
.. Kislyak looks like a jovial sort who enjoys a hearty chuckle. His sides must be splitting these days as Trump repeals and replaces officials who are investigating Russia or who deny knowing any Russians.