US Attorney General Sessions to recuse himself from Russia probes

Head of Trump’s Justice Department yields to pressure from Democrats and Republicans after it emerged he met with Moscow envoy during campaign

ed note–

‘…And when Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but that instead a riot was breaking out, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying “I am innocent of this man’s blood, and you yourselves shall bear the responsibility…’

This passage, taken from the gospel of St. Matthew where the hated Jesus of Nazareth has been brought before the Roman governor Pilate by His enemies making up Judea, Inc serves as a good comparison to what those same interests today are trying to do vis a vis the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

Just as 2,000 years ago when those same interests wore Pilate down with their incessant, insane demands, and the more that Pilate tried reasoning with them the more irrational and violent they became, likewise today, the great, great grandchildren of yesterday’s Zealots and Siccari are doing their best to wear down Trump, moving from one issue to the next and in the process making it impossible for him to move forward with what he plans to do that obviously has them vexed and in the throes of diabolic, epileptic fits that defy all explanation and understanding.

Anyone today witnessing all of this who still–after a Kilimanjaro-sized mountain of evidence to the contrary, continues to cling to the notion that somehow this is all ‘an act’ and that in reality organized Jewish interests ‘love Trump’ because of his ‘Jewish daughter’ and things he has said about Netanyahu really should just close up the laptop and go someplace quiet to get their heads together. What we are witnessing is no less than a pack of hyenas working in a carefully coordinated effort in bringing down the lion king and no sane person with an ounce of reasoning ability can conclude anything else but that.

As far as the particulars surrounding Sessions ‘meeting with the Russians,’ again, what we are witnessing is Trump’s enemies seizing upon sentence fragments, rearranging them and then blowing them out of their proper proportions in order to intimate the existence of something which in fact does not exist. There is a big difference between ‘having a meeting with someone’ vs ‘meeting someone’. If I invite someone to my house for a ‘meeting’, what this obviously intimates is that we are getting together to discuss something of importance vs being at a party and ‘meeting’ someone as part of the casual business of individuals greeting each other in an air of cordiality. This was obvious what Sessions meant when he testified before Congress that he never had any ‘meetings’ with the Russians.

The only question that remains to be asked/answered vis a vis all this involving Sessions is whether he is being targeted as part of the general strategy of dismembering Trump’s machinery with the aim of rendering him and his admin ineffective to the point that Congress has the grounds to remove him via the impeachment process, or whether it is due to something particular about Sessions’ job as Atty General and what he may do vis a vis the corruption in DC which Trump promised to eradicate.

Either way, the one thing which any intelligent person can deduce/conclude from watching all of this drama is that Judea, Inc obviously is gunning to have Trump removed, all the theories to the contrary by certain ‘experts’ in this movement notwithstanding.

Times of Israel

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that he would recuse himself from any investigation into Donald Trump’s election campaign, which faces intense scrutiny over contacts with Russia.

The news came amid revelations that he did not disclose during his confirmation hearing his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the US during the presidential campaign.

Sessions faced mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to step aside in light of the revelations which suggested Sessions’ conversations with the ambassador contradicted his sworn statements to Congress during his confirmation hearings.

The Justice Department said there was nothing improper about the meetings as Sessions insisted he never met with Russian officials to discuss the campaign.

The attorney general said he made his decision after his staff recommended that he recuse himself from any investigation related to the Trump campaign, since he had been involved in that campaign.

Sessions added that his announcement “should not be interpreted as confirmation of the existence of any investigation.”

The White House has stood behind Sessions, though officials said they first learned about his contacts with the ambassador from a reporter Wednesday night. President Donald Trump said he had “total” confidence in him and didn’t think he needed to step aside from the investigation.

The Justice Department has maintained there was nothing improper about Sessions’ contacts or his answers to Congress, while the continuing allegations of Russian interference in American politics spurred Democratic calls for Sessions not only to recuse himself but to resign.

Sessions has faced increasing demands that he resolve the seeming contradiction between his two conversations in the summer and fall with Moscow’s US envoy, Sergey Kislyak, and his sworn statements to Congress in January, when he said he had not had communications with Russians during the campaign.

Calling for Sessions to resign, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi accused him of “lying under oath.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a special prosecutor should be appointed to examine whether the federal investigation into the Kremlin’s meddling in the US election — and into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russians — had been compromised by Sessions. Democrats also sought a criminal perjury investigation.

“If there was nothing wrong, why don’t you just tell the truth?” Schumer said. Sessions’ testimony “was definitely extremely misleading to say the least.”

And more than a half-dozen Republican lawmakers, including some who consider themselves personally close to Sessions, urged him to recuse himself from the Justice Department probe. They include Sen. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who said that though he found it impossible to believe that Sessions could have colluded with Russia, “If there is an investigation, he probably shouldn’t be the person leading it.”

The news comes on the heels of what had been the high point of Trump’s young presidency: a well-received address to Congress Tuesday night that energized Republicans and appeared to wipe away some lawmakers’ concerns about the administration’s tumultuous start.

Trump has been trailed for months by questions about potential ties to Russia. He’s vigorously denied being aware of any contacts his associates had with Russia during the campaign and has also insisted he has no financial ties to Russia.

The Justice Department acknowledged two separate Sessions interactions with Kislyak, both after cybersecurity firms had concluded that Russian intelligence agencies were behind cyber-hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

The first occurred after a Heritage Foundation event during the Republican National Convention in July, when the department says a group of envoys — including the Russian ambassador — approached Sessions. The second was a September conversation, which the department likened to the more than 25 conversations Sessions had with foreign ambassadors last year as a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

While there is nothing necessarily nefarious or even unusual about a member of Congress meeting with a foreign ambassador, typically members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meet with foreign ambassadors, not Armed Services Committee lawmakers, whose responsibility is oversight of the military and the Pentagon. Congressional contact with Russian officials was limited after the invasion of Crimea and due to Moscow’s close relationship with Syria, a pariah for much of the West.

But Sessions, an early supporter of Trump’s candidacy and a policy adviser during the campaign, did not disclose those discussions at his Senate confirmation hearing in January when asked what he would do if “anyone affiliated” with the campaign had been in contact with officials of the Russian government.

Sessions replied that he had not had communications with the Russians, and answered “no” in a separate written questionnaire when asked about contacts regarding the election.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the disclosure of the talks with Kislyak “the latest attack against the Trump administration by partisan Democrats.”

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said it was normal for Russian diplomats to meet with US lawmakers. A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, told AP that meetings with American political figures were part of the embassy’s “everyday business.”

Revelations of the contacts, first reported by The Washington Post, came amid a disclosure by three administration officials that White House lawyers have instructed aides to Trump to preserve materials that could be connected to Russian meddling in the American political process.

The officials who confirmed that staffers were instructed to comply with preservation-of-materials directions did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly disclose the memo from White House counsel Don McGahn.

At the confirmation hearing in January, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked Sessions about allegations of contact between Russia and Trump aides during the 2016 election.

Sessions said, “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have, did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”