Now that we know that Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador in his private Senate office on Thursday, September 8th, 2016, we need to try to put that time period in some context so we can assess the plausibility that the conversation didn’t relate primarily to the presidential election.
Now, this meeting came right after the Labor Day break (September 3rd-5th). Just prior to the break, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid went very public with a letter to the FBI he wrote in which he expressed grave concern that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election and possibly to even tamper with the tabulation of the vote.
Some of the items that alarmed Sen. Reid included information that had just been publicly disclosed about the Russians breaching and exfiltrating voter files in Arizona and Illinois, as well as allegations that a Trump foreign policy advisor named Carter Page had been in contact with Kremlin officials in July, that Trump advisor and friend Roger Stone was in contact with WikiLeaks, and that there was classified information that the Russians had provided Wikileaks with the emails from John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee.
Going back a little further in time, Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort had been forced to resign his position on August 19th amidst revelations that he had been paid bribes by the pro-Russian Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych. To give you a reminder of how things were playing out on this issue in the campaign, here is how the Clinton campaign responded at the time:
“Paul Manafort’s resignation is a clear admission that the disturbing connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Russia and Ukraine are untenable,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement. “You can get rid of Manafort, but that doesn’t end the odd bromance Trump has with Putin.”
Now, the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele sent the FBI the following memo in mid-September, a week after the second meeting between Sessions and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak (notice that Kislyak is specifically mentioned):
It’s significant that Kislyak was reportedly part of a Kremlin faction that had been urging caution about interfering in the election on behalf of Trump. The leader of the opposing faction, longtime Putin confidante and chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, was unexpectedly fired on August 12th, setting off a lot of speculation among kremlinologists. What they didn’t know was that Ivanov was punished for bringing heat on Russia.
And the heat would only grow. In addition to Harry Reid’s letter to the FBI, several Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote Director Comey on August 30th, begging him to investigate “overt and covert acts of Trump campaign officials on behalf of Russian interests.” The senior Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Diane Feinstein, would follow up with their own letter on September 22nd, citing “briefings we have received…that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election” and calling on “President Putin to immediately order a halt to this activity” since “orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from the very senior levels of the Russian government.”
Also of significance is another part of Christopher Steele’s dossier:
If this is accurate, Putin fired his chief of staff on August 12th and met with Yanukovych on August 15th. Both events came on the heels of former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell writing an August 5th endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the New York Times in which he said that “Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security,” and “in the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”
It’s possible, too, that Putin became aware that “the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials” and that this led to his mid-August actions.
We now suspect that three of those four Trump team members were Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Carter Page.
Speaking of Carter Page, he had been recommended to Trump by someone. When Julia Ioffe tried to figure out who was responsible back in September, Jeff Session’s former staffer Stephen Miller claimed not to know who Carter Page was and Sessions’ current chief of staff Rick Dearborn wouldn’t return her calls. Both men are now installed in the Oval Office. Dearborn is the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Intergovernmental Affairs and Implementation and formerly served as the executive director of the Presidential Transition Team for Trump. Miller is one of Trump’s most senior advisers. Ioffe didn’t call them for no reason, however. She knew they had both worked on putting together Trump’s foreign policy team.
Ioffe’s article on Page came out on September 23rd, so her reporting coincided with the Sessions-Kislyak meeting on September 8th.
We are supposed to believe that with all this controversy swirling around Carter Page and Russian hacking and with the Kremlin sacking people and looking to cover their tracks, that Sessions and Kislyak sat down together that day to talk about issues unrelated to any of it. Sessions claims that the meeting was unexceptional, just like many other meetings he’s held with ambassadors from many other countries. And the purpose of the meeting was to discuss issues pertaining to his duties as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and not at all related to his role as a senior foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Of course, no one else on the Armed Services Committee met with Kislyak in this time period, so there’s no corroboration that the committee was working on anything of particular interest to Kislyak at the time.
So, you tell me. Do you think Sessions told the truth to Sen. Patrick Leahy when he wrote that he had no contact “with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?”
Does that pass your smell test?
For my part, all I smell is perjury.
Nah it’s all the Democrats’ fault, because they’re dorks or something. Anyone who says otherwise is a McCarthyite and they have no proof anyway. You’ll see.
Damn straight. And this is all a foolish distraction from focusing all your wrath, Boo, on the real enemies: Neoliberals, the DNC, the Clintons and their hangers-on, the Democratic Party in general; and let’s not forget how the USA in general is a worldwide force for evil, and responsible for all that is wrong; if some other government even did meddle in the election — and of course it didn’t, you have no proof other than what the intelligence community is saying, and we all know they’re corrupt neocon liars top to bottom — well, even if it did happen it’s no more than we deserve so shut up and go bash a neoliberal instead.
You sound like Arthur and Marie.
well at some point the impressions just write themselves
Do you guys know what the word “neoliberal” actually means? Why don’t you look it up some time?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
Oddly enough, as much as neoliberalism’s definition has been discussed as of late, I suspect that many of us would have a clue or two, or at least have had the opportunity to do so. I speak as someone who has participated in those conversations. Credit where credit is due: oaguabonita not only pointed to a wonderful summary on of all things Wikipedia and did an even better job contrasting the Democratic and Republican parties with regard to who is actually been pursuing neoliberal policies. In the past, I’ve pointed to an article by Sherry Ortner, which seemed like a nice start at a how its critics might view it, and if one has access to a decent public library (admittedly thanks to our own bout of austerity especially in Red parts of the US that is a bit of a stretch) or bookstore (online or otherwise) I love David Harvey’s Brief History of Neoliberalism. You don’t have to buy into Marxian theories to get something out of that book (thankfully he largely steers clear of such theorizing). Harvey is short on solutions, but he sure does have a good grasp of the problem and how it has manifest over geographic regions across the globe. Just sayin’.
Before I forget, one very valuable thing about David Harvey’s book is that he does a good job of avoiding the trap of false equivalence (or what we know more colloquially as both-siderism). He did a fantastic job of describing how and why the Democratic Party – although not a neoliberal party in any meaningful sense of the term – has not been as consistent and coherent as many of us would like it to be in fighting those who truly are neoliberal, and it was as fair and balanced as any critique could be. There are many of us who could learn a thing or two in the process.
Just remember, Marie did everything Arthur did, just backwards, and in high heels.
Oh, wait a minute, that’s not right….
You noticed!
I hope you folks are having fun.
Let’s put it like this. I have consistently and vigorously argued against a number of people on this issue. But I don’t go in for mockery.
Oh please. AG -cries- out to be mocked with his glib cynicism, useless gibes, and “bet on it”.
I skip over his comments unless I’m looking for comedy.
AG may be the exception that proves the rule. But associating Marie with him, when there really is no such association, was part of the pile-on.
And I’m not saying don’t push back. I’m just saying don’t pile on to people, especially when … as in this case .. they were not even present at the time. It’s not a debate, it’s like a wolf pack. That’s a particular thing, it’s the blog discussion equivalent of a mob.
Coming back to AG, skipping over his comments is fine. Although even he has lucid moments.
Well, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards special pleading.
And let’s not forget that before we believe anything any intelligence group says about this, first they must confess all their illegal surveillance, it must all be aired publicly, and they must ask for forgiveness. Otherwise we should believe anything anybody say…forever.
.
But why can’t we bash both?
Absolutely.
Because the Democratic Party has done everything correctly. It never makes any mistakes at all.
It hasn’t had this little power since before the Great Recession. But clearly this is the fault of people who post in comment threads of liberal blogs.
If they didn’t post their mean comments Hillary would have won and we would have taken the Senate and the House.
I’m impressed! Your strawman is indeed so much bigger than mine!
I win!!
So I guess a commemorative Lenin figurine complete with him pointing (into the future)
For a consultation prize I suggest a Goldman Sachs mug for you.
Though there are actually people in this thread who think that what is posted here is more than just people talking about politics.
That isn’t a straw man.
LOL! I demand some chocolate in my mug!
Oh, yes, this article of Booman’s is about way more than politics, it’s part of an ongoing saga of revelations about just how thoroughly the current administration is compromised by its foreign entanglements. And for a wonder, most of the discussion here is actually on the merits, rather than being hijacked into the usual derailing obsessions of the persons being lampooned, or sidetracked into minimization and outright denial of just how serious this is. Unfortunately, I’d made the mistake of checking a couple of diaries/comment threads in the Recommended column before reading it, and, well….
Bad janicket! Must… control… snarkasm….
P.S. Nitpick: I think you meant “consolation” prize, although “consultation” is a neat slip given the GS reference.
Oh, and don’t you think your statue will look lovely in your garden? And the arm will be perfect for the birds to perch on.
Of course it’s perjury. But then most of what Trump says is kaka. His administration pays no price because we’re in totally uncharted territory and no one knows what the rules are anymore or how to enforce them. Lord knows there’s no shame. So unless someone turns up a smoking gun, Sessions skates. And if someone finds the gun, perhaps he skates anyway.
They’ll claim Sessions recusing himself is all that’s needed and proves what a noble, honest fellow he is so shut up and drop the subject.
Nonsense. The one Rule for Washington that has reigned supreme for the last 40+ years is IOKIYAR. As a result, there’s two forms of Rule of Law and two standards for ethics and corruption. And until the American public stops tolerating IOKIYAR and ousts the GOP, American democracy will continue to be degraded.
Sessions is toast.
I can certainly hope.
How long did the meeting last? There would have been some agenda agreed ahead of time: what was it?
How frequently did Sessions meet with foreign ambassadors?
I can’t believe in that time frame anyone was doing anything but thinking about the election. It is worth some context:
This meeting coincides with the collapse of the Clinton lead.
This is interesting in one sense in that explains the Russian interest in the meeting. The polling in August looked like Trump did not have a chance. That very much changed in early September, and in fact the September polling was generally more predictive that the October polling.
In that context it is not surprising the Russian Ambassador would want to meet with Sessions: someone who might have influence in a new administration.
What did they talk about? John Harwood this morning already said they talked in a general way about the election: which is hardly surprising.
But what is curious to me is why Sessions wanted the meeting. What was he trying to get out of it?
I don’t know.
But it sure is suspicious as hell.
This is what I want to know too. In answering questions today he said something along the lines of “I meet with a lot of people.” Well, how many of those other people were foreign diplomats? And generally speaking, how often do other members of the Armed Services Committee meet with foreign diplomats?
None of those answers would prove anything, but I am genuinely curious.
○ On 9/11, the presidential campaigns go silent
The Clinton-Trump race has tightened in recent weeks, with the RealClearPolitics.com polls average showing Clinton now ahead by just 3 percentage points.
However, a Washington Post poll released Sunday shows Clinton leading Trump 45-to-35 percent among registered voters, essentially unchanged from when the party’s nomination conventions ended in late August. The Post poll also shows Clinton ahead by 8 percentage points, 51-43, among “likely” voters.
○ Voters doubt Clinton’s pneumonia explanation, poll shows | The Guardian |
Yep, Putin the Magician!
Coincidental … 10 points ahead and in her weekend of Sept. 10/11, 2016!
these days (cf. James Clapper, whom Obama — in perhaps the most mysterious of his actions, to me at least — kept in his post anyway)?
I really don’t get that.
Clapper was at least lying about a very highly classified program. He still should have lost his job, but that’s a situation where a completely candid answer in an unclassified hearing wasn’t an option.
It’s not really analogous to testifying as to whether you met with people or not.
he was trying to keep covered up an unconstitutional program.
Which was the original problem.
Right. Another reason he was forgiven by the people who might have held him accountable.
You’re right. It’s obvious why forgiveness would be politically tolerated for Clapper and less so for Sessions. But it shouldn’t be. The only material difference I can see is that Clapper is clearly, unambiguously, guilty with no room for reasonable doubt. In any case, Sessions looks to be close in size to ex-gov Don Siegelman. In a just world, Siegelman might get the satisfaction of donating his jump suit to Sessions as a hand-me-down.
Content, timing and voice all brilliant to the purpose of the moment. May your retweets be legion.
From my earlier diary, link to Rupert Murdoch’s Louise Mensch, article published on November 7th …
Personally I doubt he will be prosecuted for perjury. I mean whatever else you may think, who controls the congress? There is a chance this will force him to resign but slim at best. Maybe there will be a special prosecutor but even that will be weak tea. All this shows to me is more of an absolutely corrupt administration who will stoop to any depths to get what they desire, even to putting us all in danger to expand their power. It is part and parcel of the republican party these days.
“We now suspect that three of those four Trump team members were Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Carter Page.”
And the 4th Ruscetteer looks to be Micheal Cohen.
It is worth remembering here the famous case of Alger Hiss. The McCarthyist HUAC circus succeeded in bringing him down badly because of the perjury regarding his know of Whittaker Chambers.