The new attorney general is named for Americans who took a valiant stand against equality and for oppression—and now it’s Sessions’ turn to be a stone wall in the path of justice.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions faced growing pressure on Tuesday to remove himself from any role in investigating President Trump’s aides and their relationship with Russia, but advisers to Mr. Sessions said he saw no need to do so.
There’s no mechanism to force Sessions to step back or to force the Justice Department to appoint a special outside counsel. Congress can ask. The public can demand. And Sessions can still block any action.
During a bitter confirmation fight that focused partly on his closeness to Mr. Trump, Mr. Sessions said last month that he saw no need to remove himself from any decisions involving Russia-related investigations and the White House, writing that he was “not aware of a basis to recuse myself.”
That remains his answer, an adviser to Mr. Sessions said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity in discussing private conversations. None of the recent events involving Mr. Flynn had moved the attorney general to reconsider his stance, the adviser said.
Sally Yates showed exactly what an attorney general interested in justice can do. Which is why Yates is gone. Jefferson Sessions is now demonstrating exactly why Trump was so anxious to have him in place.
Sessions’ position as the AG allows him to throttle Justice Department investigations and precludes any chance that someone independent of Trump would get an opportunity to look at the evidence the DOJ has accumulated. With congressional Republicans unwilling to form a special committee, much less appoint an outside prosecutor, the odds of anyone being able to conduct a full investigation seem vanishingly small.
Donald Trump can complain about leaks all he wants, and there are legitimate concerns about conducting policy based on leaks—but right now leaks are all we have. Because the “legitimate” instruments of justice simply refuse to look.
Of course, Trump wasn’t always so reluctant to call for independent investigation.
Mr. Trump himself threatened to appoint an outside prosecutor last year if he were elected — not to investigate his own White House, but to re-examine Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails.
Mr. Trump angrily told Mrs. Clinton at one presidential debate during the campaign that if elected, he would instruct his attorney general “to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.”
If he were president, he told her, “you’d be in jail.” That threat unnerved both Republican and Democratic legal analysts.
What’s rule No. 1 again? Believe the autocrat.
Trump meant it when he talked about the wall. He meant it when he talked about a deportation force. No matter how many meaningless compliments he threw out to Hillary for attending his inauguration, he means this too.
And what better way to distract from his ongoing scandal.
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