Tag Archives: Burr

Sessions’ Testimony Evaluated – Part 2

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In the previous post, I discussed the opening of Attorney General Sessions’ testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In this part, I will begin reviewing the questioning by the Committee:

Chairman Burr began by asking about Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech at the Mayflower Hotel, to which, as noted in Part 1, the Russian Ambassador, and known spy, Sergey Kislyak was invited. Burr offered up this softball:

Would you say you were there as a United States Senator or as a surrogate of the campaign for this event?

To which Sessions said:

I came there as an interested person and very anxious to see how President Trump would do in his first major foreign policy address. I believe he had only given one major speech before and that was maybe at the Jewish event. It was an interesting time for me to observe his delivery and the message he would make. That was my main purpose of being there.

What? Sessions was sworn in as Attorney General on February 9, recused himself from the Trump-Russia investigation on March 2 and on April 27, the date of the Mayflower speech, he wants us to believe he was just another guy interested to see how the President would handle himself at his second big speech, the first having been given at the “Jewish event.” Wait, the “Jewish event?” What kind of language is that? The reference is to Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was two days before the Mayflower event.

Putting that aside, for now, Sessions’ explanation for his presence at the Mayflower speech simply beggars the imagination. He was present at an invitation-only VIP reception for about two dozen people, including Kislyak, and it is utterly implausible that he was there just out of curiosity about Trump’s speech-making capabilities.

Sessions then introduced the concept of “appropriateness” to his testimony. When Senator Warner asked for a commitment to make himself (Sessions) available to the committee in the weeks/months ahead, Sessions said he would do so “as appropriate,” citing his belief that it was not “good policy” to “continually bring cabinet members or the attorney general before multiple committees going over the same things over and over.” Then this ensued:

WARNER: Appropriations committee raised that issue.

SESSIONS: I just gave you my answer.

WARNER: Can we get your commitment since there will be questions about the meetings that took place or not, access to documents or memoranda or your day book or something?

SESSIONS: We will be glad to provide appropriate responses to your questions and review them carefully. [emphasis added]

Sessions continued to avoid answering even simple direct questions:

WARNER: You have confidence [Robert Mueller] will do the job?

SESSIONS: I will not discuss hypotheticals or what might be a factual situation in the future that I’m not aware of today. I know nothing about the investigation. I fully recuse myself.

WARNER: I have a series of questions, sir. Do you believe the president has confidence?

SESSIONS: I have not talked to him about it.

There then ensued a struggle between Sen. Warner and Sessions over whether anyone at DOJ had discussed presidential pardons with “any of the individuals involved with the Russia investigation.” Interestingly, Sessions treated that question as seeking information about conversations with the President and refused to answer. Warner asked about “other Department of Justice or White House officials,” but again Sessions refused.

We have a right to have full and robust debate within the Department of Justice and encourage people to speak up and argue cases on different sides. Those arguments are not — historically we have seen they shouldn’t be revealed.

This, I suggest, is tantamount to a statement that the Department of Justice will simply not answer to the investigative bodies within the United States Congress. It would be quite significant if DOJ lawyers were already talking about presidential pardons related to Trump-Russia, but Sessions essentially said “none of your business.”

Finally, for today, Warner did obtain Sessions’ concession that while he claimed to have had severe concerns about James Comey’s performance as FBI director even prior to being confirmed as Attorney General, he never discussed those concerns with Comey. Instead, he endorsed Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein’s memo to the President that Comey should be summarily fired.

Voice from the Past Trying to Tip the Scale?

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Call me paranoid if you like, but the publication of a think-piece by Kenneth Starr leaves me more than a little disturbed. The article is entitled “Believe in the process” in the published Washington Post of June 16, 2017 and as “Firing Mueller would be an insult to the Founding Fathers” in the online version of the Post. http://wapo.st/2rDNAja

Starr, you may recall, was U.S. Solicitor General for President Bush (41) and served as independent counsel investigating various aspects of the Clinton presidency. His story can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Starr.

Starr’s observations in the Post start off well enough, arguing that “the process, untidy and rancorous as ever, is actually working well” and that we need to “step back” and let the government finish its work. Referring to the present special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, Starr states the obvious: “the president would be singularly ill-advised to threaten, much less order, Mueller’s firing.” Starr adds that “Wisdom counsels strongly against unleashing a 21st-century version of the Saturday Night Massacre of Watergate-era infamy.”

Then, a funny thing happens. In what looks to me like a subtle attempt at gas-lighting. Starr writes:

Certainly, if Mueller wanders outside the bounds of professionalism and basic integrity, he can and should be fired. Concerns are already being raised – including about Mueller’s friendship with Comey and his staff-packing with anti-Trump partisans. He will be closely watched.

Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t noticed any “concerns” being raised about Mueller’s approach to the investigation of Trump-Russia or other possible criminal conduct by Trump and his administration. Virtually everyone who has addressed the subject has praised Mueller as a paragon of integrity and professionalism, someone beyond reproach.

Starr goes further, addressing Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions’ refusal, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, to discuss any aspect of conversations with the president related to anything. Sessions asserted that the president should be given the questions and what amounts to an indefinite period of time to decide whether and how the questions can be answered. Starr flatly declares that Sessions “was on entirely solid ground in safeguarding the president’s right to invoke executive privilege.”

However, when Senator Kamala Harris tried to examine Sessions about why Sessions did not prepare for the inevitable questions about contacts with Trump, she was interrupted by Senator McCain waiving a verbal flag at Chairman Burr to stop Harris’ effort to get at that important question. Burr responded by effectively preventing further examination on that point. The question I have raised in other forums was, of course, not reached: why the previous intelligence leaders and Sessions’ appearance did not include White House counsel who could have advised on the spot about the assertion of executive privilege and the basis for it.

Then the Starr article gets even crazier and more troublesome. Starr goes on to say that “the early returns also suggest the absence of any Oval Office criminality.” He sells out on whether Trump’s “hope” that Comey would drop the Michael Flynn investigation was reasonably construed by Comey as a statement of presidential intention rather than a wistful wishing upon a star (no pun intended, but I do like it). Starr claims that “to hope that the director would abandon a line of inquiry is most naturally read as pleading and cajoling, but not as an order” and “in any event, at the time, Comey didn’t treat the president’s words as a directive.”

These declarations are astonishing in multiple ways that reflect an attempt by Starr to put his foot on the scale and add gravitas to Trump’s defense against obstruction of justice. There is no indication, other than Fox News and its like, that “early returns … suggest the absence of any Oval Office criminality.”

There are, I suggest, millions of Americans who believe just the opposite based on what has been disclosed thus far. Moreover, what Starr claims is the most “naturally read” thrust of the president’s stated “hope” is, in fact, downright silly, since Starr was not present to observe the president’s demeanor or fully evaluate the context. The notion that the president of the United States, known globally for his always-aggressive style, was effectively on bended knee before a man whose employment was in the president’s hands is facially absurd. And, of course, Starr ignores the most inconvenient fact, confirmed by Sessions, that Trump cleared the room before addressing his “hope” to Comey. Trump can’t begin to remember the last time he pleaded and cajoled to get his way.

Finally, there is Starr’s claim that since Comey at the time didn’t treat Trump’s words as a “directive,” the “pleading and cajoling” must not have been a directive. What would Comey have had to do to show that he took the words as a statement of what the president wanted and expected of him? Salute? Bow down? In fact, Comey went to his car and promptly wrote down what had transpired. And he asked the Attorney General to not leave him alone with the president in the future. That memorandum is now in the hands of Special Prosecutor Mueller. Starr would have us believe that Comey made the whole thing up, an act that even most of Comey’s principal adversaries seem to believe is inconsistent with both his character and long-time behavior.

I suspect we have not seen the last of Trump’s shadow team stepping forward to try to shore up the sinking ship that Trump has captained to near disaster. Newt Gingrich is another voice from the Republican past who is going to extraordinary lengths to sustain the president in his self-imposed hour of ever-deepening crisis. Gingrich for example, has stated that a president cannot, as a matter of law, commit obstruction of justice. http://bit.ly/2rFgD5N

Last time I looked, the United States was still a constitutional democracy. We do not have a king. We have not had a king since 1776 when we declared our independence and officially ended any allegiance to the King of England. Gingrich should refresh his memory regarding the U.S. Constitution.

It would not be surprising if more people like Starr and Gingrich join the proverbial circle of wagons around the White House. Even Vice President Pence is lawyering up. Give it your best shot, gentlemen. The cavalry is coming. But this is not a Western movie and the cavalry is not coming to save you.