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US ATTORNEY GENERAL Jeff Sessions found himself in an increasingly untenable position yesterday, as President Donald Trump once again publicly skewered his top law enforcement official, calling him “VERY weak” and saying he is “disappointed”.
Sessions was one of Trump’s earliest and most loyal supporters, but the Republican billionaire has turned on him publicly in the past week, as rumours fly that the former senator from Alabama will be replaced.
Trump has openly criticised Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing a federal probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to meddle in the 2016 US presidential elections.
Yesterday, Trump berated Sessions over what he deemed insufficient efforts in pursuing intelligence leaks and for failing to go after former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her private email server.
In one trademark early morning tweetstorms, Trump said:
Later, he again said he was “disappointed” in Sessions and reiterated that had he known Sessions would remove himself from the Russia probe, he would not have hired him.
“He should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office and, if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and I would have quite simply picked somebody else,” Trump told reporters.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Trump declined to say whether he planned to fire Sessions. When asked how long he planned to criticise Sessions without firing him, Trump said:
I’m just looking at it … I’ll just see. It’s a very important thing.
Decision ‘soon’
New White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated that Trump was not going to change his mind, and her boss, communications director Anthony Scaramucci said, “We’ll get to a resolution soon”.
US presidents normally go to great pains to avoid being seen as influencing ongoing or possible investigations, making Trump’s attacks on Sessions all the more extraordinary.
With pressure mounting from the investigation led by special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller, Trump has sought to revive an election year controversy over Clinton’s use of a private server to send emails while secretary of state.
The Washington Post has reported that Trump’s team sees getting rid of Sessions as part of a potential strategy to fire Mueller and end the investigation.
Sessions, however, has said he has no plans to resign.
The website Axios reported that Trump was considering replacing Sessions with another early supporter, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
But Giuliani dismissed the report and said Sessions was right to have recused himself from the Russia probe, CNN reported.
On Monday, Trump had already wondered out loud why Sessions was not investigating Clinton.
The White House also alleged last week that the Democrats colluded with Ukraine during the 2016 campaign, adding another twist to the president’s counter-offensive.
In another early morning tweet on Tuesday, Trump said:
Kiev’s embassy in Washington refuted that claim, saying it didn’t help “any candidate” in the election.
‘Witch hunt’
Trump has expressed increasing anger with Sessions as his Justice Department’s investigations into possible Trump-Russia collusion has quickened.
Sessions recused himself because of his role on Trump’s campaign and because he failed to tell the Senate during his confirmation hearings about contacts he had with the Russian ambassador in Washington.
Yesterday, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway said Sessions’ recusal had opened the door to what Trump sees as a “witch hunt.”
Trump’s eldest son, son-in-law and top aides have become entangled in the widening investigation led by Mueller.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a top White House official, was questioned by lawmakers on Monday and yesterday. He was asked about contacts with then Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a Russian financier and a Russian lawyer who offered dirt on Clinton.
Kushner made a statement on Monday denying collusion after testifying behind closed doors, insisting the string of undisclosed meetings with Russian officials were “proper.” Trump tweeted:
In May, Trump fired FBI director James Comey over the bureau’s investigation into Russia. That led to Mueller’s appointment as a special prosecutor.
Sessions’ onetime Republican colleagues in the Senate came to his defense, saying he showed good judgment in removing himself from the Russia probe.
“Jeff understands that we are a nation of laws, not men,” said Lindsey Graham.
Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer chimed in, “It’s clear that President Trump is trying to bully his own attorney general out of office. How can anyone draw a different conclusion?”
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Retrofitting is only available to the people with plenty of cash . Same as most other benefits .
All I read in the above article is that we need to lower our living standards drastically. I do not trust anyone who tells me we need to eat less meat and then replace it with processed crap.
@An Drew Bearla: Yes, all that came out of the big meeting in Davos is that we must stop eating meat and dairy or the world will starve, and we must share our cars or cycle or walk, all the mullarkey Ryan is spouting and all from a bunch that then sat down to a four course meat laden lunch after flying in on 1500 private jets. The narrative to blame the ordinary consumer and deflect away from their lavish carbon laden lifestyles is ridiculous. Animal farm springs to mind
Will do this, will improve that. All talk and no action. The government has no motivation to implement any of these policies. Still using diesel commuter trains ffs.
@Tomo: We are making progress faster than ever before. I would live to speed it up too, but denial of what’s happening is nor helpful.
Bottom line is what comes out of our chimneys and out of the vehicle tailpipes isn’t good for us and has resulted in worse health for our population and more deaths. Even if you think climate change isn’t real (it is) then only a fool would continue to not tackle us poisoning ourselves.
@Barry Somers: a few more new taxes will sort everything.
That’s the problem, the greens solution is to tax the problem with no alternative. Of course, people are turning against it
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Not true.
@Nicholas McMurry: Yes it is true. Tax tax tax from a fella that knows about as much about climate change as my 8yr old. All the solutions Eamo is pushing for at present are financially or infrastructurally unviable like hydrogen which is inhibitively expensive to make or offshore wind which we have no way due to planning restrictions and lack of infrastructure make, but which are the chief objectives of E3G which ol Eamo is/was a senior associate of, as usual the self serving bull we have gotten used to in Irish politics. Any man that signs off on tax incentives for fuel for private jets and the writing off of carbon footprint for such is not green. No viable alternatives for anything, no reduction in our carbon footprint despite all the waffle, lying about our agricultural footprint throwing our farmers and food producers under a bus because they are a soft target while letting big corporations off the hook by giving them all our carbon credits from our grasslands, hedgegrows and forestry. Ireland is not one of the worst polluters as we are so often told to justify taxing the life out of us we just fall foul of the carbon credit rules that the large industrial countries set up to make themselves look far better than they really are, America, Germany France etc
@Nicholas McMurry: of course its true, if the government and greens in particular wanted to actually do something that wasn’t a punitive tax measure, it would be a shock.
Insulation is the most effective measure, yet they persist in making the retrofitting policy, part of the convoluted seai scheme which requires “trained” certified installers, when homeowners could, depending on their current skills learn to install it just as effectively themselves, by watching a few instructional videos, just like the “trained” installers did…
Subsidising insulation for domestic projects with a zero vat rate, would encourage more people to retrofit insulation to their homes themselves, reducing the amount of heating from all sources, along with particulate and carbon emissions across the board.
Better put the old age pension up. Where will all the food come from? More homes will be needed.
Anyone find those TRVs (main image) a complete waste of time?
I find that after a year the da*n thing is stuck on full heat. (I’ve checked the pin underneath and it seems to move freely) Was this just another way for the plumbers to make a few bucks :) ?
So, if we live in England or Wales and insulate our homes we could live for 836,000 years. I don’t want to live that long.
Why does an article in an Irish publication write about a foreign country without stipulating that it is a study done in that foreign country?
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