Recusal and Refusal – the Curious Case of Attorney General Jeff Sessions

The only thing certain about Jeff Sessions is the fact that, for reasons known only to himself, he is bound and determined to be the Attorney General of the United States.

Sessions was a well-liked and comparatively successful senator from Alabama, whose own re-election was virtually perpetual for as long as he wanted to serve in the Senate. Sessions was respected by both sides of the Senate aisle- that is, until he decided to accept President Donald Trump’s nomination as the nation’s eighty-fourth attorney general. From the first day of his confirmation hearings, Sessions subjected himself and even his career to wholesale slander, particularly on the part of fellow Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ), alleging that the Alabama senator was a de facto racist who should not receive Senate confirmation. After an excruciating inquisition by Booker, and his fellow Democrats on the senate Judiciary Committee, desperate to find some reason to reject their fellow and once-liked fellow senator, Sessions was nevertheless approved on an 11-9 strictly partisan vote in committee, and an equally-partisan 52-47 vote in the U.S. Senate.

Sessions wasn’t in the new job a month when he decided to recuse himself from all matters related to the investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. So broadly applied was this recusal, that Sessions has since maintained more than an arm’s length distance between himself and any investigation, even remotely connected to the Russian/Trump probe. This recusal (and, in essence, refusal to pursue investigation) even precludes his participation in anything to do with Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, FBI illegal use of a Clinton-funded dossier to get FISA court authority to spy on members of the Trump campaign, and probing into the Clinton Foundation/Uranium One collusion, which resulted in the transfer of 20% of our uranium stockpile to Russian interests. Obviously, Sessions had nothing to do with any of these scandals but, so far, he has used his recusal to avoid anything related to these revelations, as well.

In essence, Sessions’ recusal has effectively taken the Justice Department away from the Trump administration, and placed it into the hands of Obama-appointed officials, and under the oversight of Rod Rosenstein, whose inexorable ties to the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, as well as Bob Mueller and James Comey, render him unable to judiciously pursue investigations and indictments against these former officials.

Worse, because of cowardice on the part of Senate Republicans, the Democrat minority in that chamber has effectively blocked President Trump from firing Sessions. Doing so would place the entire Justice Department under Rosenstein’s direction until Sessions’ replacement can be confirmed- something that Senate Democrats vow will never happen as long Trump remains president. Gutless Republicans would roll over in such a scenario, allow their Democrat colleagues to block a second Trump AG appointment, and then Democrats would use such a firing to prompt impeachment proceedings in the House, under the guise that Sessions’ firing would somehow be construed as obstruction of justice.

So, the president is boxed in on the subject of Sessions and is thereby reduced to periodic humiliation of his own attorney general, in the form of comments via Twitter, to try to get him to resign his post. No one can rightfully blame Trump for his frustration with not having an effective attorney general as part of his administration. After all, Kennedy had his brother, Bobby, Nixon (for a while) had John Mitchell, Reagan had Ed Meese, Clinton had Janet Reno, Bush had his triad of John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey, and Obama had the tag-team of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. All of the aforementioned attorneys general did their level best to serve the presidents who appointed them.

Who does Trump have? Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from anything related to serving the interests of his own president. In his recusal, he refuses to get involved- even when it comes to pursing indictments against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and their apparatchiks, who have clearly violated several criminal statues when it came to the covering up for Hillary Clinton, and using the powers of the Obama-led federal government to attack Donald Trump.

In all of this, Sessions is a quandary, in and of himself. On surface, the most loyal of Trump’s supporters, he was the first U.S. Senator to endorse, actively support and even work for Donald Trump’s nomination, back when no one else even dared to do so. He worked tirelessly to help Trump beat sixteen other candidates for the Republican nomination, and he remained in place to help Trump win the fall election. He weathered an unbelievable storm of invective, inquisition and indignation to survive Senate scrutiny and become Trump’s attorney general. Yet, in this role, he has effectively abdicated any sense of running the Justice Department and, through his all-too-timid and time-consuming responses to Republican demands for criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, he has virtually assured that none of these bad actors will ever face criminal consequences for their own actions, as long as he stubbornly remains in place.

All of which brings us to the inevitable question, “Is there another, ulterior motive in Sessions’ dogged pursuit of, and stubbornly remaining in this office?”

… and that question prompts dozens more in the curious case of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

 

-Drew Nickell 2 March 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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