Search This Blog

Thursday, March 2, 2017

The WaPo and The War On Sessions

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had spoken to the Russian ambassador twice in 2016.  Supposedly, this is big news.  After all, if Sessions spoke to the Russian ambassador, then that must prove that President Trump and Russian president Putin were working together to defeat Hillary Clinton, right? Nope.  It doesn't even come close to leading to that conclusion. 

Let's unpack this story.  As of last summer, Jeff Sessions was a United States senator and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  At one point during that time, Sessions gave a speech at a public conference and, after the speech was over, he was approached by a group of ambassadors who had been in the audience.  They chatted with Sessions for a few minutes.  One was the Russian ambassador.  There were four or five other ambassadors from other countries as well.

At another point last summer, Sessions had a meeting in his Senate office with the Russian ambassador to discuss matters relating to Sessions' work on the Armed Services committee.

Now here's the key according to the WaPo.  At his confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked what he would do if he learned as Attorney General that there had been communications about the election between the Trump campaign and the Russians.  Sessions' response was in essence that he knew of no such communications and that he had not spoken to the Russians on that himself.  Of course, the WaPo had no information about the substance of the Sessions' contacts with the Russian ambassador, so there is no reason to doubt what Sessions said.

This was immediately distorted by the media and the Democrats into Sessions "lied" to Congress.  What a joke.  The point of what Sessions said was that he had not spoken about the campaign to the Russians, not that he had never spoken to any Russian. 

It's worth noting that Nancy Pelosi and a bunch of other Democrats immediately called on Sessions to resign.  It was a classic political stunt.  For eight years, these same people did not care when Obama officials actually lied to Congress.  Now, they are "outraged" over a phony, manufactured episode.

No comments: