Trump’s attorney general was a central figure in the presidential campaign. He can’t pretend to be impartial
TOPICS: DONALD TRUMP, JEFF SESSIONS, MICHAEL FLYNN, RUSSIA, RUSSIAN HACK, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION,TRUMP SCANDAL, TRUMP WHITE HOUSE, NEWS, POLITICS NEWS
Remember the final debate of the presidential campaign? That was when Donald Trump looked right at Hillary Clinton and growled, “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.” If he were president, he told her, “you’d be in jail.” Well, the worm has turned.
Trump may be president now, but one month into his presidency there are already calls for a special prosecutor and an independent bipartisan commission to investigate his ties to the Russian government and its involvement in the election. All this comes, of course, in the wake of the resignation of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn. There is also growing consternation over new Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ involvement in any investigation. Considering that he was heavily involved in Trump’s campaign — which would presumably be a central subject of that investigation — it is totally inappropriate for him to oversee the case.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement on Wednesday demanding that Sessions recuse himself from the investigation.
[Flynn’s] resignation raises more questions than it answers and the American people deserve the truth. . . . I believe that Attorney General Sessions has no choice but to recuse himself, and then he should and must put an independent investigative authority in charge.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., went even further, saying, “This really merits an independent investigation. It’s not an investigation that should take place by Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions is too tied to the campaign, too tied to the president. It needs to be an independent or a special prosecutor.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for a 9/11-style commission.
And as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tweeted on Wednesday:
If Lynch had to recuse herself to being on an airplane w Bill Clinton for 30 minutes, then *clearly* Sessions has to recuse himself.
It’s worth briefly revisiting the Loretta Lynch “tarmac meeting” to get a little perspective. Last June the then-attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had a chance 30-minute meeting at the Phoenix airport. This was seen by the Republicans as obvious proof that Lynch was colluding with the campaign to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for having kept a private email server when she was secretary of state. Lynch quickly recused herself from the case, saying she would accept the recommendation of the prosecutors. James Comey, the FBI director, subsequently announced there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the email case, and that should have been that.
But that’s not what happened, as we know. Just three days before the election, former New York mayor and top Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani wrote this:
Attorney General Lynch and former President Clinton met on the Phoenix, Arizona tarmac days before Secretary Clinton was to be interviewed by the FBI for possible criminal activity. It has been reported that her staff ordered witnesses not to take pictures and no one was present during their 39-minute conversation. General Lynch never recused herself from decisions on the Clinton investigation after her self-admitted “mistake,” as it has also been reported that she continues to deny the FBI the authority to convene a Grand Jury, which is necessary for any meaningful investigation.
Yes, the Trump forces tried to insist on a grand jury to investigate that single meeting. Today we have an attorney general who was knee-deep in the presidential campaign that now is (or soon will be) under investigation. Sessions stumped for Trump all over the country, gave a nomination speech at the Republican convention and was touted as “the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy” for the Trump administration.
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