Attorney General Jeff Sessions: No special prosecutor needed to investigate Donald Trump’s web of ties to Russia during the months when Russia was interfering in the U.S. election and Sessions himself was meeting with the Russian ambassador, meetings he then told the Senate Judiciary Committee hadn’t happened (we call that lying). But that’s not to say Sessions wouldn’t consider outside counsel to look into goings-on at the Justice Department. Just, you know, the Obama Justice Department.
Rightwing talk radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Sessions if he would bring in outside counsel to investigate the tenures of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch:
That counsel, Hewitt suggested, would have “authority to bring charges if underlying crimes were uncovered,” and pointed to controversies including alleged bias within the IRS against conservative political groups and the “Fast and Furious” scandal in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed guns to be sold illegally in the hopes of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels.
“Well I’m going to do everything I possibly can to restore the independence and professionalism of the Department of Justice,” Sessions replied. “So we’ll have to consider whether or not some outside counsel is needed. Generally, a good review of that internally is the first step before any such decision is made.”
The Obama administration was remarkably scandal-free, but maybe we can change that by a politicized, after-the-fact “investigation” into a bunch of conspiracy theories popular on the right! Also, how exactly would it be “restoring the independence” of the Justice Department to do exactly what the party currently in power would like to see done, while refusing to seriously investigate the guy who appointed you despite a lot of evidence that such an investigation might turn up real problems?
Oh, right. It’s Republican world. Logic does not apply, and “independence and professionalism” does not mean independence and professionalism.