Habitual bankrupter of businesses, former pussy grabber, and current President of the United States, Donald Trump, has an Attorney General problem.
See, when he decided to install known bigot and scheming lawn gnome Jeff Sessions at the helm of the DoJ, it apparently didn’t occur to Trump that Sessions wasn’t 100% on board with the prospect of going down with the ship (and yes, the maritime word play there is intentional).
To be fair to Trump, why would that have occurred to him? After all, every indication suggested Sessions was just fine with the whole Russia collusion thing and Jeff has seemingly perjured himself on about a half-dozen occasions over the past year, so clearly, he’s not completely aboveboard, nor is he completely above conceptualizing the President as someone who is above the law.
But Sessions has, at times, wavered in his willingness to do anything and everything to insulate Trump and back in March, it looked like Trump might finally fire him. Sessions effectively saved his own job by stripping Andrew McCabe of his pension just days before retirement, but the fact that Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation opened the door for Robert Mueller to proceed with the probe unimpeded by a White House puppet has been a continual source of consternation for the President.
That consternation has prompted Trump to repeatedly attack Sessions on Twitter and when Michael Cohen’s offices were raided in April, the President threw his AG under the bus by effectively blaming him for the fact that Rosenstein had the authority to sign off on the raid.
As you’re probably aware, rumors have circulated for months that Trump privately refers to Sessions as “Mr. Magoo”, a characterization he tried to dismiss with the following absurd tweet that found the actual leader of the free world insisting that he isn’t familiar with this Magoo “character”, let alone “Mr. Peepers”:
The Washington Post said I refer to Jeff Sessions as “Mr. Magoo” and Rod Rosenstein as “Mr. Peepers.” This is “according to people with whom the president has spoken.” There are no such people and don’t know these characters…just more Fake & Disgusting News to create ill will!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2018
Meanwhile, Trump’s widely reported attempts to get rid of Sessions last year are apparently on the list of things Robert Mueller is investigating as part of the obstruction probe.
Well earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Trump literally invited Sessions to Mar-a-Lago and tried to shout the AG into submission last year. To wit:
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.
So that brings us to Wednesday, when Trump, halfway through his traditional morning Twitter meltdown, quoted Trey Gowdy on the way to saying he “wishes” he hadn’t made Sessions AG in the first place.
Rep.Trey Gowdy, “I don’t think so, I think what the President is doing is expressing frustration that Attorney General Sessions should have shared these reasons for recusal before he took the job, not afterward. If I were the President and I picked someone to be the country’s….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018
….chief law enforcement officer, and they told me later, ‘oh by the way I’m not going to be able to participate in the most important case in the office, I would be frustrated too…and that’s how I read that – Senator Sessions, why didn’t you tell me before I picked you…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018
….There are lots of really good lawyers in the country, he could have picked somebody else!” And I wish I did!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018
Invariably, Trump is going to fire Sessions, and in case it isn’t clear enough, he probably would have gotten rid of “Magoo” and “Peepers” already were it not for the fact that doing so would only make him look even more guilty and potentially make Mueller’s obstruction case stronger.
Whatever the case, this is wildly inappropriate (I mean, seriously – this is the President of the United States pulling one of those horrible bad parent moments where, in a fit of rage, an angry mom screams “I wish you were never born!” at a rebellious teenager).
Oh, and it’s too bad he didn’t mention what Gowdy said about the FBI, which, in case you missed it, was this:
House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy says the FBI "did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do" in Russia investigation https://t.co/ITch12IyPN pic.twitter.com/UOJF2k4rZd
— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) May 30, 2018
