Sorry for a sort of scattershot diary of thoughts here, but I think there was a missed opportunity at Beauregard Sessions III’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee to get him to nail down what sort of conduct we can expect out of him in regards to what I think will be an expansion of the investigations into the Trump Organization (senso lato) and I am curious what other think.
Here is a number of facts that either came out in the hearing or we generally know already:
- Sessions has recused himself from involvement into investigations pertaining to the Trump campaign, under which the current Russia investigation falls. Sessions claims this recusal was from the day he was sworn in, but we all know the first we heard of this recusal was after it came out Sessions lied about his Russia contacts during the nomination process.
- Sessions slagged on Comey during the hearing by accusing Comey of being a renegade and not following historical Department of Justice precedents and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
- Sessions further claimed that historical DOJ precedents were the reason he couldn’t answer a multitude of questions.
Knowing all this, I just want to ask, do you get the impression Sessions communicates with Trump and the White House an awful fucking lot? Like they are in close contact way more than the historical norm.
I mean wouldn’t you like to know if Sessions and Trump talk on the phone or in person every day? Or three times a day? And not just Trump, but Bannon, Gorska, Stephen Miller, and the other Pepe-policy people in the White House.
Imagine if Sessions was asked about how often and how he and Trump are in contact (i.e. the metadata of their contact)? A lot of good things happen:
- If he tries to argue that he can’t tell us due to executive privilege, that is a good thing for people to discuss. I have no idea if this metadata is or is not protected.
- If he says it is a lot, we can ask about the historical precedent, compare it to historical precedent, and that opens up Sessions to having to recuse himself from a whole range of things involving (investigation of) the president.
- If he says it is not often, we will probably find out he if he is lying or not. And I would guess lying in this case, which would be another datapoint for his eventual dismissal.
Anyways, I think Sessions’ apparent closeness with Trump and his stated claims to want to run historically by-the-book DOJ opens a potential means backing both guys into a corner. Thanks for reading.