After news broke Wednesday that attorney general Jeff Sessions had two previously undisclosed meetings with the Russian ambassador prior to his confirmation, President Donald Trump was blissfully, worrisomely silent. Perhaps he was taking his time to craft a careful response to the latest scandal to plague his first 100 days in office.
Don’t let the calm, cool and collected Trump you saw Tuesday —a man capable of reading words from a Teleprompter and nothing more —fool you. Of course he has a statement. And, lest you be swayed by Tuesday night’s Trump, I regret to inform you that it is more of the same.
Here is the official statement from the president on his attorney general, who recused himself Thursday from a probe that he was leading into Russian interference into the U.S. election.
“It is a total witch hunt!” is one way of putting it but at this point, the constant handwringing and shrieking about how the Democrats are just sore losers is wearing thin.
In other fun news, he’s at least cooling his effusive praise for Russia, perhaps in light of this recent kerfuffle. Reuters reports that the “bromance”(their words, not mine) brewing between Putin and Trump has cooed as of late. There’s also talk of the job of top Russia adviser at the National Security council being offered to Russia scholar Fiona Hill, who has government experience and understands Russia, Bloomberg reports. Okay, fine, I’ll take it.
Meanwhile, Sessions showed up on Fox News and told Tucker Carlson Thursday that despite the report from the U.S. intelligence community about Vladimir Putin’s direct order to influence the 2016 election, he doesn’t know if they did it because they wanted Trump to win.
From the Washington Post:
“Did the campaign believe that the Russian government, the Putin government, favored Trump over Clinton in this race?” Carlson asked.
“I have never been told that,” Sessions responded.
“Do you think they did?” Carlson said.
“I don’t have any idea, Tucker, you’d have to ask them,” Sessions said.
The report in question stated that “Russia sought to help Trump win the presidency said Russia carried out an unprecedented cyber campaign, penetrating U.S. computer systems and relaying emails to WikiLeaks.” It was presented to a variety of people, including James Comey of the F.B.I. The F.B.I reports to the attorney general. Jeff Sessions is the attorney general.
Are you picking up what I’m putting down?