This could all get a lot more interesting than anybody expects. Excerpted From The Daily Beast: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no plans to leave office, as friends say he’s grown angry with President Donald…
This could all get a lot more interesting than anybody expects.
Excerpted From The Daily Beast: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no plans to leave office, as friends say he’s grown angry with President Donald Trump following a series of attacks meant to marginalize his power and, potentially, encourage his resignation.
“Sessions is totally pissed off about it, ” said a Sessions ally familiar with his thinking. “It’s beyond insane. It’s cruel and it’s insane and it’s stupid.”
Sessions’ allies say the president’s criticism of the attorney general is counterproductive. Perhaps more than any other member of Trump’s Cabinet, Sessions has been an uncompromising advocate for Trump’s agenda. The attorney general has worked methodically to dismantle Obama’s legacy at the Justice Department: reconsidering the department’s efforts to make troubled police departments change their practices, changing the DOJ’s stance on voter-ID lawsuits, and rolling back former Attorney General Eric Holder’s sentencing guidelines that were aimed at reduced incarceration and balancing out drug-crime-related punishments.
Every pick for a U. S. Attorney’s office that Sessions has made has underscored the administration’s focus on border security. He’s visited the border twice to emphasize a desire to prosecute undocumented immigrants. He’s passionately defended Trump’s so-called travel ban and threatened to withhold funding from “sanctuary” cities.
In the process, he’s become Public Enemy No. 1 for progressives, which makes his targeting by Trump so baffling to those close to him.
“He’s not going anywhere, ” said another Sessions ally. “He is not going to resign. What he is accomplishing is way too important to the country.”
Rather than quit, Sessions insiders predict the attorney general will call Trump’s bluff. And unlike other members of Trump’s Cabinet, he has political wiggle room to do so. Trump’s base of support—immigration restrictionists, rank-and-file law-enforcement officials, and states’ rights conservatives—were Sessions’ fans before they flocked to the president. They may very well scoff at the idea that the administration would be better off without its AG. Sessions also enjoys continued support in the Senate, where he served for a decade. On Tuesday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pushed back on Trump’s attacks and called the president’s encouragement that Sessions prosecute Hillary Clinton over her email use “highly inappropriate.”
Much of Trump’s senior staff in the White House doesn’ t expect Sessions to leave any time soon either. The attorney general has several hardcore fans within the top ranks, including senior adviser for policy Stephen Miller and chief strategist Steve Bannon, the latter of whom has previously dubbed Session his “mentor.”
“ [Sessions] isn’ t going anywhere… we’ ve all lived through enough of these episodes where people end up getting on the president’s bad side, but guess what? They’ re still around, ” one White House official noted. Keep reading
