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The Sessions sessions

Beelzebuddy said:
One thing that struck me during the hearing, but I haven't seen commented on: when Sessions was stonewalling, why didn't the committee say "Trump knows you're testifying, if he wished to invoke executive privilege he would have, answer the question or face charges of contempt?" Why did they let him weasel off the hook with claiming to want to let Trump claim it later?
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Because they could. The Republicans running those meetings weren't interested in exposing the crimes that clearly took place. The committee chair gives an allotted equal time to each Congress person to ask questions and then allowed Sessions to filibuster his way through the answers. What we saw with Sessions and Coats etc was a joke. It was disingenuous at best.
 
acbytesla said:
Because they could. The Republicans running those meetings weren't interested in exposing the crimes that clearly took place. The committee chair gives an allotted equal time to each Congress person to ask questions and then allowed Sessions to filibuster his way through the answers. What we saw with Sessions and Coats etc was a joke. It was disingenuous at best.
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Yes, but even the senators who actually were trying to get answers out of him didn't try that. Maybe they got the hint that he'd just move on to the next reason he shouldn't have to answer, but I'd at least like to have had the seriousness of the testimony defended a little bit, charade though it may be.
 
Sessions memory is dangerously suspect for a man holding the office of AG.

An American lobbyist for Russian interests who helped craft an important foreign policy speech for Donald Trump has confirmed that he attended two dinners hosted by Jeff Sessions during the 2016 campaign, apparently contradicting the attorney general’s sworn testimony given this week.

Sessions testified under oath on Tuesday that he did not believe he had any contacts with lobbyists working for Russian interests over the course of Trump’s campaign. But Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany during the Reagan administration, who has represented Russian interests in Washington, told the Guardian that he could confirm previous media reports that stated he had contacts with Sessions at the time.

“I did attend two dinners with groups of former Republican foreign policy officials and Senator Sessions,” Burt said.
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Beelzebuddy said:
Yes, but even the senators who actually were trying to get answers out of him didn't try that. Maybe they got the hint that he'd just move on to the next reason he shouldn't have to answer, but I'd at least like to have had the seriousness of the testimony defended a little bit, charade though it may be.
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I just watched him time and again not answer the questions and invoking executive privilege without actually invoking it. I would respect Sessions and Coats if they refused to answer based on executive privilege or the 5th other than say there was a long standing justce department policy for stonewalling Congress.
 
Vixen said:
Sessions came across badly. Sounded drunk.

His claim to be unable to recall or remember anything yet be adamant he doesn't recall doing anything improper and that he had Executive Order privilege, which meant he didn't have to disclose what Trump said to him in private conversation, whilst looking faux relaxed, made him sound like a liar, and not even a convincing one.
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Oy. Legalese. If you're pretty sure that X did not happen, you don't say "X didn't happen" - there's always the possibility that something occurred of which you were unaware, or that something occurred and you have genuinely forgotten. Therefore, you say either "I am not aware of X having occurred" or you say "I have no recollection of X having occurred".

It doesn't indicate a bad memory. It doesn't indicate shenanigans. It indicates someone giving a legally accurate response.
 
autumn1971 said:
He never claimed executive privilege, he invoked some bizarro-world double-secret Attorney General magic.
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Just for consideration, Coats and Rogers gave the same response, according to the testimony:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/13/full-text-jeff-session-trump-russia-testimony-239503
FEINSTEIN: Did you discuss director Comey's handling of the investigations with the president or anyone else?

SESSIONS: Senator Feinstein, that would call for a communication between the director and the president and I'm not able to comment on that.

FEINSTEIN: You are not able to answer the question here whether you discussed that with him?

SESSIONS: That's correct.

FEINSTEIN: And how do you view that since you discussed his termination, why wouldn't you discuss the reasons?

SESSIONS: Well, those were put in writing and sent to the president and he made those public. He made that public.

FEINSTEIN: You had no verbal conversation with him about the firing of Mr. Comey?

SESSIONS: I'm not able to discuss with you or confirm or deny the nature of a private conversation that I may have had with the president on this subject or others. I know this will be discussed, but that's the rules that have been adhered to by the Department of Justice as you know.

FEINSTEIN: You are a long time colleague, but we heard Mr. Coats and Admiral Rogers say essentially the same thing. When it was easy just to say if the answer was no, no.

SESSIONS: The easy would have been easier to say yes, yes. Both would have been improper.
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Are Rogers and Coats also considered to be Trump shills who are obviously guilty? I don't really know anything about them.
 
lomiller said:
Is it wise to have someone who can’t keep track of such recent events and details in such a senior position? How can they be relied on to act appropriately if they can’t recall what they are supposed to be acting on?
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How exactly does one go about keeping track of things that didn't happen?

Almost all the cases of "I do not recall" coming out of Sessions were questions about whether a particular meeting took place - most of them were about the Mayfair thing, over and over again.

He said he does not recall meeting Kislyak at that event, it is possible that he met him in passing, but he does not recall doing so. He says, pretty clearly, that he did not have any private meetings with Kislyak at that event.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Oy. Legalese. If you're pretty sure that X did not happen, you don't say "X didn't happen" - there's always the possibility that something occurred of which you were unaware, or that something occurred and you have genuinely forgotten. Therefore, you say either "I am not aware of X having occurred" or you say "I have no recollection of X having occurred".

It doesn't indicate a bad memory. It doesn't indicate shenanigans. It indicates someone giving a legally accurate response.
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Especially in light of him not thinking that his regular, scheduled Senator meeting with the Russian ambassador was relevant in the context of being asked about sinister campaign meetings with "the Russians", and then being accused of lying about it by the Washington Pest and their ilk.

So pathetic, and I really don't like to defend this caricature of a little man.
 
Childlike Empress said:
So pathetic, and I really don't like to defend this caricature of a little man.
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I'm not particularly fond of finding myself perceived as "defending" any of this pack of ********. But my lack of fondness for them wouldn't justify me abandoning my principles regarding evidence as opposed to speculation, honesty as opposed to spin. We've reached a point where anything that isn't slaveringly yelling that Trump is the worstest ever and every single thing about him is totally completely evil is perceived as "evangelism".
 
Emily's Cat said:
I'm not particularly fond of finding myself perceived as "defending" any of this pack of ********. But my lack of fondness for them wouldn't justify me abandoning my principles regarding evidence as opposed to speculation, honesty as opposed to spin. We've reached a point where anything that isn't slaveringly yelling that Trump is the worstest ever and every single thing about him is totally completely evil is perceived as "evangelism".
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Yep, totally absurd. I met with four old friends yesterday, all of us Germans safely left of almost the whole US political spectrum, one married to an African-American lady, nobody with any love for what Trump represents, but we all agreed that some random tweet of him along the lines of (paraphrasing) "They blow up a made up collusion theory to deflect from the fact that Clinton lost against all odds. Sad." contains a lot of truth.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I'm not particularly fond of finding myself perceived as "defending" any of this pack of ********. But my lack of fondness for them wouldn't justify me abandoning my principles regarding evidence as opposed to speculation, honesty as opposed to spin. We've reached a point where anything that isn't slaveringly yelling that Trump is the worstest ever and every single thing about him is totally completely evil is perceived as "evangelism".
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it is a fact that there is enough evidence for an investigation, much of it you would think we are nit privy to yet.
 
Please stick to the topic of the Sessons sessions; lies and/or evasions by other politicians are really not on topic.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha
 
Emily's Cat said:
I'm not particularly fond of finding myself perceived as "defending" any of this pack of ********. But my lack of fondness for them wouldn't justify me abandoning my principles regarding evidence as opposed to speculation, honesty as opposed to spin. We've reached a point where anything that isn't slaveringly yelling that Trump is the worstest ever and every single thing about him is totally completely evil is perceived as "evangelism".
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Oh, c'mon. I can't say declaritively that Trump was personally involved in collusion with Russians but one would need to be blind not to see the many clues pointing in that direction. That said, I think the evidence is overwhelming that Trump obstructed justice in his clumsy attempts to derail the investigation. That alone is reason to dig even deeper into Trump and his associates and theur relations with the Russians. From my view, Sessions is guilty of perjury as is Flynn. I'm guessing that there may be other charges against Flynn.
 
acbytesla said:
Oh, c'mon. I can't say declaritively that Trump was personally involved in collusion with Russians but one would need to be blind not to see the many clues pointing in that direction.
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Apparently the entire intelligence community is blind, and has been for the last 6 months? Is that what you're going with - the rampant speculation and allegations tossed about in the media as opinion pieces rather than fact is sufficient for you to declare that anyone who doesn't believe that Trump is obviously guilty is simply blind - including the FBI.

acbytesla said:
That said, I think the evidence is overwhelming that Trump obstructed justice in his clumsy attempts to derail the investigation.
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No. There is exactly one person's testimony, in what amounts to hearsay. One person claimed that Trump suggested that he should wrap up the Flynn investigation. While that may well have been the intent, the wording is weaselly enough that there's no "overwhelming" anything, let alone evidence. There's sufficient suspicion to investigate. There's definitely NOT sufficient evidence to conclude any thing at all.

acbytesla said:
That alone is reason to dig even deeper into Trump and his associates and theur relations with the Russians.
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Why? Because one person claimed that Trump wanted the investigation to end? That is reason to dig deeper?

Seriously, is this another one of those cases where admission is seen as evidence of guilt, silence is seen as evidence of guilt, and denial is seen as evidence of guilt? Another of those cases where there is no acceptable answer (from your point of view) that is anything other than guilt?

acbytesla said:
From my view, Sessions is guilty of perjury as is Flynn. I'm guessing that there may be other charges against Flynn.
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How so? Please provide supporting evidence of any lie that Sessions told.

Remember that you disliking his testimony doesn't make it perjury. Jesus, if your logic held, you understand that Clinton would be considered guilty of treason, right?
 
Via the Russian Embassy in UK (who have a pretty sarcastic guy running their twitter account):

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