Report: Sessions Key Witness In Robert Mueller Obstruction Probe | The Last Word | MSNBC
"Part 211, some of..." I hope the next one is on the way.Missing them.
MSNBC Published on May 29, 2018
The New York Times reports that Trump berated Jeff Sessions and tried to get him to reverse Sessions' recusal on the Russia probe. Mueller is now investigating the incident. And Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani says they are preparing for the possibility of impeachment. Lawrence discusses with John Heilemann, Harry Litman, and Jason Johnson.
Trump Asked Sessions to Retain Control of Russia Inquiry After His Recusal
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in March 2017 that he was recusing himself from oversight of the Russia investigation and any other campaign-related matters.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
By Michael S. Schmidt and Julie Hirschfeld Davis
May 29, 2018
WASHINGTON — By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been receiving the presidential silent treatment for two days. Mr. Sessions had flown to Florida because Mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban.
When they met, Mr. Trump was ready to talk — but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.
Mr. Sessions refused.
The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president’s public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general.
The special counsel’s interest demonstrates Mr. Sessions’s overlooked role as a key witness in the investigation into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. It also suggests that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be — encompassing not only the president’s interactions with and firing of the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, but also his relationship with Mr. Sessions.
[...]
Mr. Giuliani said that he had not discussed Mr. Sessions’s recusal with Mr. Trump but that a request that Mr. Sessions reassert control over the Russia investigation would be within the bounds of the president’s authority.
“‘Unrecuse’ doesn’t say, ‘Bury the investigation.’ It says on the face of it: Take responsibility for it and handle it correctly,” Mr. Giuliani said on Tuesday evening.
[...]
Mr. Trump immediately recognized the potential effect of a recusal. He had his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, lobby Mr. Sessions to retain oversight of the inquiry.
To Justice Department officials close to Mr. Sessions, the request by the president made through Mr. McGahn was inappropriate, particularly because it was clear to them that Mr. Sessions had to step aside. After Mr. Sessions told Mr. McGahn that he would follow the Justice Department lawyers’ advice to recuse himself from all matters related to the election, Mr. McGahn backed down. Mr. Sessions recused himself on March 2.
How Cohen’s Money Trail Could Capsize The Donald Trump Presidency | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
"Part 211, some of"
MSNBC Published on May 28, 2018
The Stormy Daniels scandal and the Mueller Russia probe appear to converge around Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, as Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti alleges corporate and foreign payments to Cohen may have entered the same account used to pay his client $130,000 in hush money. Former U.S. Attorney Randall Eliason tells Ari Melber that corporations paying Cohen might be “sleazy and unethical and the Washington swamp, but not necessarily illegal”. Rev. Al Sharpton notes that Michael Avenatti has “identified Cohen” as the person to “penetrate” to understand Trump’s exposure.
Mueller Puts President Trump In Desperate Position; Pardon Spree A Bad Idea | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on Jun 4, 2018
Rachel Maddow explains why if Donald Trump wanted to pardon his way out of the Mueller investigation by pardoning all of his family, friends, and colleagues, the Russian indictments would still keep everyone on the hook, so Trump would have to pardon the Russians too.
Note at the beginning, Cohen's lawyer, Todd Harrison, didn't get his millions, nor even come within a donkey's hee-haw of his thousands of privileged stuff in the treasures troves of the Cohen raids.
Watergate Prosecutor: Paul Manafort Is 'Toast' | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
"Part 211, some of Russian meddling, and related, material from F6 big ones."
MSNBC Published on Jun 5, 2018
Bob Mueller is seeking to jail Paul Manafort for allegedly tampering with witnesses. A new filing reveals Manafort tried to coach a witness via an encrypted app, but outed himself when the messages were save to the cloud. Watergate Prosecutor Nick Akerman tells Ari Melber the public evidence suggests Manafort is “toast”.
Lawrence: In Robert Mueller's Probe, ‘It's The Money, Stupid’ | The Last Word | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on Jun 5, 2018
Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort will find out next week if he’s going to jail for witness tampering but Lawrence argues that as the Russia probe unfolds: It all goes back to Trump and Manafort’s goal of making money for themselves above all. Natasha Bertrand, Matt Miller, and Paul Butler join Lawrence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_baB6qGU4sA
President Trump Is Reportedly So Mad At Sessions He Won't Even Say His Name | The 11th Hour | MSNBC
"Part 211, some of Russian meddling, and related, material from F6 big ones."
MSNBC Published on Jun 5, 2018
As the president continues his attacks against the Mueller investigation, Trump is now reportedly so angry at Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the Russia probe that he won't even say his name aloud. Joyce Vance, Michael Crowley, & John Heilemann all react.
This adult president has shifted his labels for his 'great guy', Jeff Sessions, AG, from that one to at least two more. Mr. Magoo, and at present Noname. How low could Trump go?
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The Agony of Jeff Sessions
By Rich Lowry
March 2, 2018 6:30 AM
Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Aaron P. Bernstein)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been attacked and belittled by President Donald Trump more than Vladimir Putin has.
Trump has had rough patches with most of his top officials at one point or another, but there is a particular poignancy in his humiliating treatment of his own attorney general, who got on board the Trump Train early and supports the president’s policy instincts as much as anyone.
But Sessions is not personally loyal, at least not in the way Trump expects, and so the man who looked past Trump’s erratic temperament when he decided to support him now routinely feels the brunt of it.
There are many ways for a president to communicate with his attorney general. He could make a phone call. He could have him over to the White House for a dressing-down. He could send an emissary to the Justice Department. Instead, Trump bangs on Sessions in public, the only purpose of which seems to be venting his own spleen and personally discomfiting Sessions as much as possible.
This is assuredly the first time a president has ever trolled his own attorney general on Twitter. It’s another example of how Trump, bizarrely, often treats his administration as something he has no authority over, except insofar as he has commenting privileges.
For Sessions, a dignified man who would never treat anyone else the way the president treats him, it has to be painful, and all the more so because of the irony of it.
Just a few short years ago, Sessions was the odd man out in the U.S. Senate. He fought rear-guard actions on immigration (successfully), inveighed against free-trade orthodoxy, and argued the GOP should be a party of workers when few were inclined to listen.
Endorsing Trump was a crazy gambit to effect a revolution in the party, and it worked. You would have expected Sessions to be the ideological conscience of the administration and a close partner of the president, the Ed Meese of the Trump administration.
Instead, he is assiduously at work implementing the Trump agenda and gets beaten about the head and shoulders for his trouble.
Sessions’ recusal in the Russian investigation set in motion events leading to the appointment of Robert Mueller, and Trump will probably never forgive him. He considers his attorney general weak and disloyal on the one question that matters most to him — protection of himself and his family.
His anger toward Sessions isn’t leavened with institutional knowledge, hence his strange blast at Sessions over the fact that, appropriately, the DOJ inspector general is going to look at allegations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. Sessions felt compelled to push back against the president in a public statement, and yet again, the civics textbooks will have to be revised to account for how government works in the Trump era.
We have all gotten used to it, but if you take a step back, that Trump as president would attack his cabinet officials via Twitter would have seemed one of the more lurid fears of his critics before he was elected. But here we are.
The ongoing spat with Sessions is another reason the administration gives off a sense of teetering on the edge of a crisis, not because of exogenous events (we’re experiencing peace and prosperity), but because of the ultimate endogenous factor — the president of the United States, without whom the administration wouldn’t exist in the first place.
If Trump were to fire Sessions, which seems unlikely, or to eventually push him over the edge into quitting, he probably wouldn’t be able to get another attorney general confirmed. Who would be acceptable both to Trump, who wants more personal loyalty, and to the Senate, which isn’t going to approve a crony? And what graybeard with independent credibility would sign up to serve?
So, Sessions isn’t going anywhere. Whether the attorney general considers that a reprieve or a punishment, only he knows.
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