We never have to wait long for the next display of Trump’s utter unsuitability for the presidency. And fortunately, many in the major news media are monitoring the sequence of Trumpian atrocities fairly closely.
In the reporting I’ve seen about Trump’s bitter complaints about Jeff Session’s recusal, however, a few points have not been sufficiently stressed. I’d like to briefly state these here.
First, two points that just show Trump’s ignorance and cognitive incompetence. Then one point that shows his profound corruption– a corruption so profound that, it seems, Trump has no idea how much his statements amount to a confession to intentions bordering on criminality.
Trump frames his complaint about Sessions this way: “if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
“He should have told me…” Gee, just how would that work? I mean, Trump named Sessions Attorney General last November. That always comes before confirmation hearings, doesn’t it? And it was at the confirmation hearings that Sessions lied under oath about not meeting with Russians. And that led to Sessions’ having to recuse himself.
So what kind of mind must the President have to imagine that, when Sessions took the job, he “should” have known he was going to recuse himself from an investigation that wasn’t known to exist, and because of developments that had not yet come to pass?
Second point: Trump has been angry about the recusal ever since Sessions did it, according to reports. Trump has always apparently thought that Sessions could have chosen otherwise. My recollection of the discussions at the time, however, is that knowledgeable people were saying that Justice Department rules essentially compelled Sessions to recuse himself.
Maybe Trump, who doesn’t give a damn about rules, imagines that Sessions could have just flouted those Justice Department rules and not recused himself. Maybe he could. But maybe not. In any event, either Trump is ignorant of the rules that bound Sessions, or he expects his people to do what’s in HIS interest, even if that means breaking long-standing and important rules. Or maybe a combination of both.
But the big point is the third: it is about why Trump so bitterly regrets that Sessions isn’t the guy overseeing the Russia/Trump investigation.
I’ve heard glimmerings in the media of what Trump is revealing here in making such a Big Deal about this recusal. But the point seems not to have been sufficiently underscored: Trump is angry because he wants an Attorney General who will protect him even if that means obstructing justice.
Trump doesn’t even seem to recognize that –as with the firing of Comey as Director of the FBI to give Trump “relief” from the investigation — he is announcing, with this Sessions complaint, that he wants the kind of “loyalty” to him, event at the cost of subverting the legitimate processes of “the rule of law,” that he reportedly sought to get from Comey.
There really is no other interpretation. Trump wants his man standing in the way of the inquiry into what happened with the Trump/Russia matter.
It is remarkable enough to have an American President who would want to subvert the independence of the Justice Department, and the rule of law.
Still more remarkable to have a President who would be so blind to what he is implying that he basically announce to the nation that interfering with the rule of law is his intention.
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