Can Jeff Sessions be trusted to investigate Flynn, Trump and the Russians?

Most importantly, Sessions was the chairman of Trump’s national security advisory committee during the campaign. When he was named to that position in March, Sessions said, “I am grateful for the opportunity to recommend and facilitate discussions among exceptional and experienced American military and diplomatic leaders to share insight and advice with Donald Trump, regardless of their political views.” Does it seem appropriate for someone in that post to be in charge of the investigation of the Trump campaign’s suspected connections to the Russian government?

At this moment there’s no evidence that Sessions was involved with or aware of the Russian contacts during the campaign, but there were certainly many more opportunities for him to hear about them than, say, during a one half-hour chat on a tarmac.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Sessions if he planned to recuse himself from any investigation pertaining to Flynn’s communications. He replied, “I am not aware of a basis to recuse myself from such matters,” but promised to consult the Justice Department’s ethics officials if he felt his “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

One issue here is that the Justice Department regulation requiring employees to recuse themselves if they have a personal or political relationship with anyone “substantially involved” in an investigation applies only to criminal cases. It appears Michael Flynn will not be charged with any criminal wrongdoing. After the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the Justice Department to hand over documents and briefings on Flynn’s resignation on Wednesday, the FBI precipitously announced that Flynn would face no criminal charges. That serendipitously lets Sessions off the hook, at least in that regard.

Whether the attorney general’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” is quite another matter, to be sure. Over the years Sessions has proved himself to be a ruthless partisan player when it comes to special prosecutors. He is full of praise for them when it suits his purpose and disdainful when they are not. Think Progress turned up one memorably ironic example from 1999, when Sessions defended independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s successor Robert Ray by saying:

[T]o say it is like Russia, I don’t appreciate that one bit. What is like Russia is when leaders lie, cheat, steal, and maintain their office. That is what happens in a country such as Russia, not in a free democracy where all Americans are equal and have a right to know that every other public official is equal and subject to the law just as they are.

Considering that we are already looking at a major scandal in which the president is accused of lying, cheating and potentially stealing, it appears that President Trump has put Sessions in a tough spot. But as Jonathan Schwarz pointed out for the Intercept, Trump can very easily put his Republican defenders out of their misery and end the scandal immediately if he really wants to: He could declassify the government intercepts of communications between Russian nationals and anyone connected to his campaign.

Unfortunately, this is a president who has refused to release his tax returns, as all his recent predecessors have done, so transparency and openness obviously won’t be hallmarks of the Trump administration. But if the president truly has nothing to hide, he has the means to prove it.