Dancing With The Tsars: Jeff Sessions Edition
Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath about his communications with Russia. What’s up with Russia, Sessions, and the Trump administration?
Ready your surprised gasps. Yet another Trump administration official has lied about their ties to Russia. This time around, it’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Yes, the Senator who was too racist for the 1980’s and who wormed his way into a top-level government position has screwed up.
What makes Sessions’ story especially interesting is the fact that, well, he lied to Congress. Of course, your own definition of “lie” or “perjury” may vary somewhat from that of A.G. Sessions.
During Sessions’ January 10 confirmation hearing, Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) asked him about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia, saying “If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”
In response, Sessions stated that “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.” At the time, Sessions was under oath.
Sessions met with Russian ambassador
The Washington Post broke a rather different story on March 1. Unnamed Justice Department officials said that Sessions had indeed spoken with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in July and September. Sessions and Kislyak talked at the Republican National Convention during July. The September meeting took place in Sessions’ private Senate office.
At the time, Sessions was a Republican Senator for Alabama. He was also a senior member of the Armed Services Committee and one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers. Sessions had formally joined the Trump campaign in February 2016.
Currently spokespeople for Trump and Sessions using rhetorical jiggery-pokery to claim that the Attorney General did nothing wrong. Senator Franken, they say, asked specifically about the Trump campaign. The meetings between Sessions and Kislyak had nothing to do with Trump’s eventual ascendancy to the Oval Office.
Sessions himself was less than forgiving during President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment proceedings. During his trial, Clinton had claimed that he did not have sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. If you really worked at the definition, you could claim that Clinton did not precisely lie. However, Senator Sessions argued that the President’s statements were misleading enough to remove Clinton from office. Sessions voted “guilty” on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Sessions responds
When Sessions announced that he would recuse himself from a federal investigation into Russian interference, he said, “I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign…. My reply to the question of Senator Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time.” Perhaps Sessions will later claim that he misunderstood the question. It’s a convenient rhetorical device.
Trump himself stated that he had “total confidence” in Sessions. He further claimed that
"[The Democrats] lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!"
So, he’s fine! Everything’s fine. Democrats are just whiny losers and really, shouldn’t we conveniently direct our attention away from Russia and towards something, anything else? Nothing behind the curtain here, folks. Move along, please.
Well, except… what exactly did the Senator and the Ambassador discuss? The weather?
Also, Sessions’ claim that “[I] did not have communications with the Russians”, in light of the Washington Post article, sure sounds a lot like perjury. A time-traveling Jeff Sessions from 1998 might even agree.
In short, the legality of Sessions’ remarks and whether or not they qualify as perjury is in a decidedly gray area right now. Some members of Congress are satisfied with his recusal. Others have called for Sessions to resign.
Sessions, who was already controversial given his past comments on race and immigration, appears to be in even deeper water. Currently, Sessions has only agreed to recuse himself from investigations into Russian interference with the past presidential election.
Trump’s Russian woes
Whether or not the Attorney General resigns his post remains to be seen. However, this is yet another blow to the integrity of the Trump administration. Trump has been plagued for months by rumors of his association with Russia.
Trump, it is said, may be under the thumb of Russian officials who hold “kompromat”, or compromising information concerning him. A much-debated dossier released at the beginning of this year details some of the allegations.
In August 2016, Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, resigned. The press had begun to question his links to Ukraine and pro-Russian regimes there. Just last month, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned when the Washington Post revealed his communications with Ambassador Kislyak.
Sergey Kislyak, it seems, is really getting around Washington these days.
At any rate, it doesn’t appear that Trump will be able to forget his Russia troubles any time soon. Try as they might to deflect, numerous members of Congress and the American public are increasingly concerned.
Next: Pervasive Nationwide Sexism Starts at the Local Level
As we dig, more and more concerning evidence arises. All of these meetings and communications have begun to raise flags. We starting to wonder if we’re just living in a red flag factory now.