Once again, Donald Trump is using his morning Twitter fit as a way to attack, not just Hillary Clinton, but the attorney general he put in office.
This is another in a string of such attacks, which seem to be centered around a portion of Trump’s nearly incoherent interview with the New York Times.
TRUMP: Look, Sessions gets the job. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself.
BAKER: Was that a mistake?
TRUMP: Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.
It’s clear that Donald Trump wants to act on that “pick somebody else.” While Trump is complaining that no one is showing him enough loyalty, his own loyalty is exhausted. He’s ready to dump everyone who was involved in his campaign and bring in some new blood—new blood willing to spend even less time doing their job, and more time backing up his every whim and distraction.
What Trump doesn’t want to do is utter his catchphrase. After firing FBI Director James Comey, he was shocked that people didn’t jump up to give him Apprentice-style approval. Instead, he’d just prefer that sessions quit. A goal he hopes to achieve by undermining the attorney general at every opportunity. And a goal that’s another step to destroy the Russia investigation.
Replacing Sessions is seen by some Trump associates as potentially being part of a strategy to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and end his investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III remains a miserable choice for Attorney General. He’s used the position to roll back progress on sentencing, pressing U.S. attorneys to make the most aggressive charges possible. He’s destroyed programs that guided non-violent drug users to treatment rather than jail, and emphasized minimum sentencing guidelines that not only put users behind bars for decades, but are used to bludgeon even the innocent into accepting lesser charges. And Sessions has been planning to gut the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, reducing staff, dropping funds, ending fights against voter suppression and ending efforts to go after police departments for police shootings. Sessions may be the only person who actually feels like there are simply not enough Americans in jail private prisons.
There is no good reason for anyone to support Jefferson Sessions. Anyone, that is, except Donald Trump. Sessions was the first—and for a long time, only—Donald Trump supporter in the U.S. Senate. Being attorney general was the reward Sessions was given for his unflagging support of Trump through the primaries and his work on the campaign.
But Donald Trump giveth. Donald Trump taketh away. In his mind, loyalty goes to Trump, never from him.
