Is Attorney General Jeff Sessions heading out the door, or isn’t he? White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms that Sessions visited the West Wing on Monday but did not meet with President Donald Trump. A source close to Sessions tells me his Monday trip was a “standing” meeting: “He’s over there pretty often—multiple times a week usually.”
But new communications director Anthony Scaramucci did tell CNN that the president and his AG “need to speak and determine what the future of the relationship looks like.”
It’s unlikely to be a good relationship if Trump continues to publicly humiliate Sessions, as he did in a Monday morning tweet referring to his AG as “beleaguered.” This, after Trump told the New York Times last week that he now regrets appointing Sessions because the former Alabama senator recused himself from the Justice Department’s Russian interference investigation. The not-so-subtle message of all of these moves is to push Sessions to resign.
But other than Scaramucci’s vague comment to CNN, both the White House and the DOJ are tight-lipped about whether the president will actually fire Sessions. “He’s very disappointed that Attorney General Sessions chose to recuse himself, and there’s not much more to add beyond what we’ve already said on the matter,” Sanders told reporters Monday.
Who Would Replace Sessions?
If Sessions is out, either by firing or resignation, who would replace him? The Washington Post reports Texas senator Ted Cruz and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani are names being “floated.” Giuliani shot down speculation on Monday and even commended Sessions’s recusal, calling it “the right decision.” Meanwhile, through a spokesman, Cruz praised Sessions and called reports he was being considered for the AG job “false.”
Whoever Trump nominates to replace Sessions will likely have a difficult time getting confirmed by the Senate, which is running its own investigation of the Russian interference and Trump campaign connections. The nominee would face tough questions about whether or not he would hinder the special counsel investigation or otherwise intervene on the president’s behalf. And besides, who would want the job, other than the most loyal of Trump loyalists?
Senate to Vote to Proceed on Trump-Backed Health-Care Bill
In a White House statement Monday, President Trump urged Senate Republicans to vote this week to proceed on the Obamacare repeal bill.
“For the last seven years, Republicans have been united in standing up for Obamacare’s victims. Remember repeal and replace, repeal and replace, they kept saying it over and over again. Every Republican running for office promised immediate relief from this disastrous law,” Trump said in the Blue Room, flanked by families who the White House described as victims of the existing health-care law. “But so far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare. They now have a chance however to hopefully—hopefully—fix what has been so badly broken for such a long time and that is through replacement of a horrible, disaster known as Obamacare.”
My colleague John McCormack reports on the stakes of Tuesday’s vote on the motion to proceed:
Kushner Goes to Congress
Jared Kushner, the president’s adviser and son-in-law, spoke to members of the Senate Intelligence committee in a closed meeting Monday about his contact with Russian nationals. But despite Kushner’s hope that the meeting would “put these matters to rest,” the committee isn’t done with him yet.
After the meeting, Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, called for Kushner to testify in an open session, saying Kushner’s Monday testimony “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“His description of his financial relationships with individuals and businesses tied to Russia appears incomplete at best,” Wyden said.
Other senators said they would push for an open hearing as well. Asked whether she was satisfied with his statement, Democrat Kamala Harris of California said she was “in the process of reviewing it.”
“I believe he should go before the full community in an open hearing,” Harris said. “I think the American people have the right to know. He said he wants to cooperate, so that would be a great way to do that.”
Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort are expected to testify before the Intelligence committee as well, perhaps as early as this week.
“We know that they’re going to come, and it doesn’t make much difference when they come as long as we get the information we want,” Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa told reporters Monday.
Both Trump Jr. and Manafort joined Kushner at a June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer. Emails between Trump Jr. and his contact for the meeting indicate the son of the Republican candidate believed the Russian lawyer could provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Kushner, in a prepared statement released to the public, claims to have read that part of the email chain before agreeing to the meeting.
Nothing in Kushner’s statement appears to directly contradict the known facts about the meeting with the Russian lawyer. At least one Democrat on the committee remain deeply skeptical of his claims.
“Kushner has repeatedly concealed information about his personal finances and meetings with foreign officials,” Wyden said. “There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth in this statement.”
