President Donald Trump just added one more enemy to his list. After the president fired FBI Director James Comey, the only one left on the Russia probe team was special counsel Robert Mueller. Attorney General Jeff Sessions just crossed from the friend to enemy list.
Sessions said on Thursday that he would stay put as AG “as long as that is appropriate,” The New York Post reported. When he said that, Sessions defied Trump who said on Wednesday that he regretted appointing Sessions as AG who later recused himself from the Russia investigation.
Work in his favor
After Trump fired Comey, the task of investigating the alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign team fell on the AG. He likely was counting on Sessions to be on his side and conclude the probe that there was no Russian interference. After all, the AG was part of Trump’s campaign team, besides being a personal friend of the real estate billionaire.
Trump, however, failed to take into account that like the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Sessions’ undisclosed contact with Russian Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak would crop up. In the case of the AG, it turned out he had more than one meeting with Kislyak that Sessions had no choice but to recuse himself from the investigation.
It inevitably passed the task of investigating the Russian meddling to Mueller on Comey’s request.
The president apparently thought he could outwit everyone by firing Comey and then appointing someone to lead the probe whom he thought would favor him, but it was Comey who outwitted him by requesting for Mueller.
The choice of Sessions to favor Trump came out from the president’s mouth, who said, “Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets the job, recuses himself, which frankly is very unfair to the president.”
Pardoning everyone
Now that he has two enemies – Mueller and Sessions – Trump is apparently changing strategy in anticipation of the special counsel digging dirt in his finances.
The New York Daily News reported that the president is seeking advice from his lawyers if he could pardon his campaign staff, family members, and himself. The presidential pardon is allegedly part of a wider plan to undercut Mueller.
Trump’s team is trying to build a case against the special counsel by claiming conflict of interest because of Mueller’s inclusion of the real estate billionaire’s finances, which Trump believes, is beyond the scope of the Russian probe and ground to terminate the special counsel, The Washington Post reported. White House staff are reportedly coming up with a list of the other alleged conflicts of interest of Mueller.
