Attorney General Sessions Plays Hardball

As the investigation into Trump’s involvement with Russia is further exhausted the next chapter of the saga has come to a close as Session testified in front of Congress yesterday.

He originally tried to clear his name by gaining sympathy from his former colleagues, and when that did not work he attempted to use his track record to prove these allegations to be outlandish, but neither worked.

The former senator was constantly at odds with his prior coworkers as he refused to answer questions regarding various interactions with President Trump, Former FBI Director James Comey, and various Russian officials all regarding the Russian hacking of the past presidential election. He was accused of trying to avoid questions, with which he responded to “just following policy.”

He attributed his lack of answers to a longstanding policy in the Justice Department that protects private conversations with Cabinet Secretaries and the President. A few of the more controversial answer refusals were in regards to a private conversation that he had with Trump, as well as specific details about the Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.

He claimed he could not recall, but the various senators in the Senate Intelligence Committee believed otherwise. Things got especially heated when he was asked about his relationship with Sergey Kislyak. They focused in on an event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington where he reportedly had a conversation with the Russian official in question. Although he remembers the event and was aware of Kislyak also being in attendance, as well as his memory serves him, he never had a conversation with this man.

There were only a few instances where the two did have conversations. One was at the Republican National Convention and the other was in his office. Of these interactions, Sessions says “Certainly, not one thing happened that was improper in any one of those meetings.” He is very adamant against any wrong doings.

Later in the hearing, they asked why he recused himself from the case, but from the very beginning, he stated that his recusal was in reference to having been an advisor to Trump all throughout the campaign, nothing about inappropriate interactions with Russian officials. He took great offense to these questions when he retorted to the board saying, “I recused myself from any investigation into the campaigns for president, but I did not recuse myself from defending my honor against scurrilous and false allegations.”

At another point, his frustration was directed towards Californian Democrat Kamala Harris. She was trying to get him to answer her questions quickly believing that he was stalling and trying to find words that would not make him look bad, but his answer was quite surprising. The reason for the delays was because if he misspoke she would “accuse [him] of lying.”

What started this whole debacle was his refusal to answer questions regarding a conversation he had with Comey. His answers to these questions contradicted those of Comey when he said that they had to be careful of appropriate conduct, not that he was powerless in regard to being asked to drop the investigation, which he never was.

When accused of his involvement in the Russian probe is “problematic,” again, Sessions was irate. He had no idea what he did may have been considered “problematic,” but what he does know is that he recused himself from the Russian probe due to his role as an advisor, he played a part in the Comey firing because he did not believe it was a problem.

More recently, Trump has asked deputy attorney general Rosenstein to fire Special Counsel Mueller. He only will if he finds the request to be “lawful and appropriate.”

Although he may have come across as unnecessarily belligerent, he had every right. He has been taken advantage of by those who oppose him in congress as well as by the media. It was time for someone involved in this investigation to take a stand.

Featured Image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore