Pleeease, Jeff?
Oh man. Comey actually asked (or told) Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump…and Sessions said “I caaaaaaan’t, I don’t know howwwwww.”
The day after President Trump asked James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, to end an investigation into his former national security adviser, Mr. Comey confronted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and said he did not want to be left alone again with the president, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Mr. Comey believed Mr. Sessions should protect the F.B.I. from White House influence, the officials said, and pulled him aside after a meeting in February to tell him that private interactions between the F.B.I. director and the president were inappropriate. But Mr. Sessions could not guarantee that the president would not try to talk to Mr. Comey alone again, the officials said.
“He’s big, and he yells, and Steve Bannon might throw a desk at me.”
Comey didn’t tell Sessions about the “let the guy off, willya?” though. Gee I wonder why.
Mr. Comey’s unwillingness to be alone with the president reflected how deeply Mr. Comey distrusted Mr. Trump, who Mr. Comey believed was trying to undermine the F.B.I.’s independence as it conducted a highly sensitive investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, the officials said. By comparison, Mr. Comey met alone at least twice with President Obama.
Remember when we had a president who wasn’t a flagrant crook and self-dealer? That was nice.
The Justice Department typically walls off the White House from criminal investigations to avoid even the appearance of political meddling in law enforcement. But Mr. Trump has repeatedly interjected himself in law enforcement matters, and never more dramatically than in his private meetings with Mr. Comey.
“You have the president of the United States talking to the director of the F.B.I., not just about any criminal investigation, but one involving his presidential campaign,” said Matthew S. Axelrod, who served in senior Justice Department roles during the Obama administration and is now a partner at the law firm Linklaters. “That is such a sharp departure from all the past traditions and rules of the road.”
Well, you know, that’s what Trump said – he was going to be all mavericky up in there.
Be honest, would you want to be in a room alone with Trump?
Acolyte, I can barely stand being in a room alone with Trump ON TV. I fear for my brain cells.
Google auto-completes trump lawyers m as trump lawyers meet in pairs in reference to a lawyer Patrick McGahn giving these answers in the Trump Plaza bankruptcy case:
I know that story just from hearing about it on NPR in my car, so Comey and Sessions must know that story. And Sessions could figure, if Comey and Sessions met with Trump, and Trump lied about what was said, then Sessions would be stuck in the middle between Trump lying and Comey eventually testifying under oath.
I’m always trying to get into the mindset of the folks who somehow have convinced themselves to support Trump, even now, and I think you brushed on it with the word “flagrant”. I suspect that’s a key element of these folks’ belief, to the extent that they accept that Trump is doing unseemly things. The decade-long smear attacks on Obama; the 25-year smear campaign against Hillary and Bill. The Right’s ‘base’ is now convinced that ALL politicians are corrupt, through and through, using the office for personal enrichment. They just think their guy is being more flagrant about it–and to them, that forms a perverse form of integrity.
It’s bullshit, of course, because there’s nothing preventing Trump and his cronies from ALSO having a bunch of back-room meetings that don’t get leaked about. The stuff we’re seeing is likely just the tip of a large, nasty iceberg. But the conservative base has convinced themselves that this is ‘all there is’, and that it’s no worse than the stuff that Hillary and Obama somehow kept in the dark despite all those pointless investigations.
Freemage wrote:
So people who voted for Trump are kinda like those parents who provide alcohol at a party for twelve year olds. “Look, they’re kids, we know they’ll find some dirty way to get themselves drunk in secret if we don’t give it to them outright. Sure, we’re watching them wreck the place — but we can see just what they’re breaking, know all about the problems they’re getting into. It’s out in the open, above board, and really, there’s just a ton of mutual respect.”
Sastra: Slightly worse than that–they provide the kids with the booze, then leave for the night because they want to show they ‘trust’ the kid to be responsible with the liquor. And they leave the keys to the second car on a hook near the door.
Freemage, Sastra – and also, they leave the debit card lying right out in the open, with the PIN written on a small sheet of sticky note attached to the card. So the kids can not just wreck the place, they can get money to buy whatever else they might want – like gold plated Nintendos, or something.