Watching the entire Sessions/Russia story unfold, a possibility came to me that I would like to game out. The past few weeks, it has been abundantly clear that the president has been trying to rid himself of the Attorney General by resignation or discharge so that he can regain control of or kill the investigation of the Russian meddling in last fall’s election. I am certain that he has a replacement at the ready, because the last thing Trump wants is to have the Deputy Attorney General serve for any length of time. Trump must know that Rosenstein would most likely act in a manner that would attempt to reclaim the 27-year reputation that was sullied by the whole Comey firing memo debacle, and that would not be beneficial to Trump. So there must be someone waiting in the wings, ready at a moment’s notice.
In many ways, at this point, it doesn’t matter if Sessions retires. He will be gone soon by whatever means. But it does matter if the Senate goes into recess. The “Attorney General in Waiting” is certainly someone for whom Trump believes he has secured undying fealty. When you consider what such a person would be, and what their past must demonstrate, it would make that person nearly impossible to get confirmed without lengthy delays. And those delays that will give time to the investigation to breach the point of no return. But if the Senate were to go into recess, Sessions would be fired within the hour and the recess appointment made. Trump doesn’t give a damn about appearances of meddling into the Russian investigation, he simply wants Mueller and the investigation “to go away.” In order for that to happen, McConnell would have to recess the Senate. It is no leap of logic to understand that McConnell already knows that doing so would seal Jeff Sessions fate and that of the Russia investigation. And McConnell knows that everybody else knows that.
If we take a look back to last fall, and McConnell’s response to the top secret security briefing on what the intelligence community knew at the time, at the very least one could say he did nothing to protect our electoral system, and chose party over country. Questions remain as to what degree the NRSC and the NRCC actually availed themselves of the information from the Russian hacks and if there was any coordination or collusion involved. Certainly those possibilities would fall under the purview of the Mueller investigation, whether or not that is part of the current investigation. What if McConnell throws aside all of the arguments that he put forward to not allow recess appointments during the Obama administration; the argument that no President should be allowed to circumvent the Senate and avoid the confirmation process? What would happen to the investigation if any part of that team viewed McConnell’s call for recess an intentional act so that the Sessions could be replaced without a Senate confirmation process? What if that appointment then resulted in the firing of Mueller as Special Counsel, as everyone on the Hill expects it would? Would the investigators view the act of calling a recess as an obstruction of justice, as the intention of the action was clear and its result decisive?
If the investigators saw the calling of the recess as an obstruction of justice into the Russia investigation, might they assume that McConnell might also have some benefit in seeing the investigation ended? Would they then begin to draw a line between McConnell’s actions this summer with his actions last fall? Would they begin to investigate his communications with the NRSC in a different light? Does McConnell have any fears at what a detailed look at his behaviors in the last year might find? At the very least, there would be an obstruction charge that could be brought. In a funny way, I hope that he does have something to hide, something significant enough, that for his own self-preservation he continues the practice of pro forma sessions and does not recess the Senate. Otherwise, a constitutional crisis could spread from the executive branch to include the legislative branch as well. Not sure we are strong enough as a nation for that right now.