Remember way back in June when Attorney General Jeff Sessions denied meeting with any Russians? Yeah, that is starting to look like it was a flat out lie. We all suspected the racist keebler elf was lying his little ears off, but now we may have intelligence intercepts to corroborate it.
The Washington Post is reporting that intercepts picked up by US spy agencies picked up audio of Kislyak discussing his conversations with Jeff Sessions to superiors in Moscow. YIKES.
WaPo reports:
"Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials."
This is problematic, to say the least.
Mind you, Sessions flat out denied this for months, going so far as saying: “I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign.”
When it was proven that he had indeed met with Russians, he was hauled back in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee to explain his lapse in memory, at which point he said: “I don’t recall any discussion of the campaign in any significant way" and later he said he had "never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States.”
Sessions has recused himself from any Russia matters, to the extreme anger of the orange toddler currently occupying the White House, as demonstrated by this bat shit crazy interview he gave on Wednesday night in which he said, about Sessions:
“Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair — and that’s a mild word — to the president.”
Mr. Trump also faulted Mr. Sessions for his testimony during Senate confirmation hearings when Mr. Sessions said he had not had “communications with the Russians” even though he had met at least twice with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. “Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers,” the president said. “He gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren’t.”
It is clear that Trump wants Sessions out. He blames him 100% for the appointment of Mueller to investigate him. He may be thinking if he can get Sessions out, he can fire Mueller, appoint a "Trump friendly" Attorney General who will be loyal to him and him alone and kill two birds with one stone.
A good conspiracy theorist might think that the release of this report is a bit too convenient and may be the White House's way of either forcing Sessions to quit, (even though he said just 12 hours after the NY Times interview that he would not be quitting), or find a way to justify firing Sessions anyhow.
So back to these calls...it is quite possible the Kislyak could have been lying in the recordings and maybe Sessions didn't talk about anything campaign or government related.
A spokesman for Sessions told WaPo: “Obviously I cannot comment on the reliability of what anonymous sources describe in a wholly uncorroborated intelligence intercept that the Washington Post has not seen and that has not been provided to me."
But the intelligence officials have said emphatically that Kislyak has a "reputation for accurately relaying details about his interactions with officials in Washington." The readouts from the intercepted calls talk about specific campaign issues, including "Trump’s positions on key policy matters of significance to Moscow." Yikes.
Kislyak also talked about a conversation he had with Sessions at the Mayflower in April of 2016, a meeting that Sessions completely denies ever happened. Sessions said, “I do not recall any conversations with any Russian official at the Mayflower Hotel.” Then, when pressed on it, he changed to “it’s conceivable that that occurred. I just don’t remember it.”
It will be interesting to see if this leads to Door 1 (Sessions quits) or Door 2 (Trump fires him).
Oh, and while we are on Trump and Russia....a little update on Donald Jr and Manafort's scheduled testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Panel for next Wednesday. Yeah, that has been cancelled. They will be providing documents and closed door testimony. Kushner's is scheduled to testify on Monday to the Senate Intelligence Committee (closed door) and to the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. Those meetings have not been cancelled, yet.
Drip, drip, drip.
