Unclear what Donald Trump gains from new potshot at Jeff Sessions
President Donald Trump made a big show last week of addressing a matter of serious business.
He did it in a seemingly futile way — with another Twitter rant against his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Trump called a decision by the former Alabama senator “disgraceful.”
As before, frustration over the special counsel’s mounting Russia investigation triggered the president.
Sessions’ alleged transgression was to have the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and not another person, probe whether prosecutors abused their power in targeting ex-Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
President Barack Obama appointed Horowitz as IG in 2012. Trump clearly fears the internal investigation will deny him the results he wants — a finding of abuse as said by his GOP House ally, Rep. Devin Nunes of California.
The Oval Office, its allies in conservative media, and some congressional Republicans all seek to discredit the special counsel’s probe in part by promoting a narrative that impugns the legitimacy of past surveillance warrants involving Page.
“Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc.,” Trump complained in his tweet last Wednesday. “Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”
If Trump seriously thinks Sessions’ decision poses a terrible injustice, he could fire him. He also could have done so when he raged at the AG’s recusal from the Russia probe and inaction against Hillary Clinton. Is he being talked out of firing Sessions — as he was before, according to ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus?
The president now might be seen as pleading with Sessions for protection.
For public consumption, Sessions has dug in. After so many instances where he seemed to be on thin ice, the AG may have grown defiant or simply fatalistic about Trump’s public humiliations.
“As long as I am the attorney general,” Sessions said last Wednesday, “I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”
Has Trump grown gun-shy about firing Sessions — or special counsel Robert Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — for fear of a boomerang effect as severe as the one that followed his dismissal of FBI Director James Comey?
Last Wednesday night, Sessions was photographed at dinner in a Washington restaurant with Rosenstein and Solicitor General Noel Francisco. The caption could have read, “What, us worry?”
Days later, the whole tempest appeared to have had no practical impact beyond getting people to talk about it.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
