The Patriot Post® · Sessions Needs to Stay
“I am pleased to endorse Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States.”
So declared conservative Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions at a rally in his home state of Alabama on Feb. 28, 2016, two days before Super Tuesday.
No other senator had endorsed Trump at that point, and Sessions explained his reasons for doing so to a home-state crowd.
Sessions shared Trump’s views on some issues — illegal immigration and trade, for example — that clashed with the establishments of both parties. And he expressed his belief that Trump would actually follow through on his commitments if elected.
“I told Donald Trump this isn’t a campaign, this is a movement,” Sessions said, as reported by Congressional Quarterly. “The American people are not happy with their government.
"You have asked for 30 years, and politicians have promised for 30 years, to fix illegal immigration,” said Sessions. “Have they done it? No. Donald Trump will do it.”
“The American people have known for years that these trade agreements have not been working for us,” said Sessions. “We now have, and soon will have a vote on, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Obamatrade. It should not pass.”
Trump understood — and reveled in — the significance of Sessions’ endorsement.
“I’m becoming mainstream,” Trump declared, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. “All these people are endorsing me. … Jeff Sessions? That means a lot. That’s a biggie to me.”
A year and a half later, Trump is president and Sessions is attorney general.
What is now at the top of Trump’s agenda? It appears to be getting Jeff Sessions to resign.
Last week, Trump talked with The New York Times — the ultimate liberal establishment newspaper — and expressed regret for having named Sessions attorney general.
“Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president,” he added. “How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair — and that’s a mild word — to the president.”
What did Sessions recuse himself from and when?
On March 2, six weeks after Trump was inaugurated and three weeks after Sessions was confirmed, Sessions announced he was recusing himself from any investigations that might involve the 2016 presidential campaigns.
He said he decided to do so after carefully considering the advice of his staff.
“I asked for their candid and honest opinion about what I should do about investigations, certain investigations,” said Sessions. “And my staff recommended recusal. They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation. I have studied the rules and considered their comments and evaluation. I believe those recommendations are right and just.”
On March 20, 18 days after Sessions recused himself, then-FBI Director James Comey testified in the House intelligence committee.
“I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts,” Comey told the committee. “As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.”
On May 9, seven weeks after this testimony, Trump fired Comey.
Eight days after that, on May 17, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel “to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017.”
In the days since he attacked his own attorney general in the Times, Trump has attacked him in tweets. When a reporter asked him Tuesday whether he wanted Sessions to resign or was “prepared to fire him,” Trump took the opportunity to attack Sessions again.
“I am disappointed in the attorney general,” Trump said. “He should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office. And if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me prior to taking office and I quite simply would have picked somebody else.”
There is no doubt that the liberal media and Democrats in Congress want to use the Comey-Mueller investigation to stop Trump from carrying out the agenda he was vowing to carry out when Sen. Jeff Sessions joined his campaign. It is also telling that the investigation has produced zero evidence of any wrongdoing by the Trump campaign.
But Attorney General Sessions made an honorable decision in determining, as he put it, that “since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation.”
American needs an honorable person leading the Justice Department, which is why Attorney General Sessions needs to stay. It also needs the policy agenda President Trump was elected to achieve — which he why he needs to re-focus his attention on getting it done.
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