Open Sessions
Rachel Maddow made a couple of important points in her show last night about the potential questions for Jeff Sessions. One issue covered the un-recusal that Sessions performed in the firing of James Comey. And the second issue covers the surprise firing on all US Attorneys at once back in March.
In the case of his Sessions’ involvement with the Comey firing, Sessions will hide behind the fact that the letter he signed recommending Comey’s removal, which was merely passing on the recommendations of Deputy AG Rosenstein, was focused on Comey’s actions regarding Hilary Clinton during the campaign. That is a highly dubious claim on its face. But, even if you take Sessions at his word on the Comey firing, it would still be violating his recusal promise. That’s because his recusal specifically stated that “I have decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” There is no restriction to the Russian investigation or even a specific mention of the Trump campaign. Rather, the specific wording of “campaigns”, clearly covers Hillary and the email investigation.
Regarding the US Attorneys, there is every indication that the intention was not to fire them all at once. The transition documents specifically stated that intention. Sessions apparently had a conference call with all the US Attorneys outlining the changes in prosecutorial focus he wanted to implement just two days before they were all summarily fired. That seems like a total waste of time if you knew everyone on the call would be fired within days. And now we have Trump’s attorney stating that he told Trump to fire Bharara because “this guy is going to get you”. This apparent total change in policy in just a matter of a day or two needs to be explored with Sessions more fully.
On the other issues regarding Sessions’ conversations with the President, I would expect that he will invoke executive privilege or ask to answer in a closed session. And base on his strong denials, he probably will stand by his statements on another April meeting with Kislyak. But he needs to be pressed very hard on what he and Kislyak actually discussed in the meetings they did have.