Apart from the wickedly great imitations of Trump’s Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions by Kate McKinnon for Saturday Night Live, I don’t think I paid much attention to the man. Sure, he’s “the Attorney-General of the whole United States” but some of us aren’t over Sally Yates yet. So forgive me.
To redeem myself and because I am such a beacon of open-mindedness, I decided to watch Jeff live as he gave his open testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier today. In hindsight, I don’t know what I’d hoped to learn exactly considering the fact that I was pretty clear he’d be trying to cast doubts on James B. Comey’s beautiful testimony given to the same Committee a week ago; but as I said, the mission was to be open-minded to learning about Mr Sessions.
Also, in hindsight – and for full disclosure in case you haven’t already figured this: I highly doubt that I was open-minded.
I distinctly recall doing a quick Google refresher before the hearing about: the “lie” Mr Sessions told Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings. He’s been asked whether or not Trump’s associates had spoken with the Russians during the 2016 campaigns. Mr Sessions said he was “not aware of any of those activities… I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”
It was later discovered that Sessions himself met with the famous Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; at least twice!
Let’s just say I was a bit prejudiced from the onset.
Nevertheless, I did pick up a enough things about him while watching all two and something hours of his Senate Intelligence hearing to conclude that he’s just like the rest of them:
That he’s the kind of man who’d say: “And I appreciate the opportunity to respond to questions as fully as the Lord enables me to do so” before his testimony begins
In his opening remarks, the Attorney-General gave a quick flash of how the next few minutes (turned out to be hours) would go. He places it all on “the Lord”. So we’d been put on notice: if anything did not come out right, was misunderstood or did not come out at all whether or not it should have, it would be because that’s how the Lord willed it. And who are we – mere mortals – to question the Lord’s will?
And so my learning process of Jeff Sessions began. With complete faith that the Lord was not going to forsake this man enough for us to even learn one damaging thing about him or those to whom he’s pledged allegiance (read: Trump).
The Lord is always faithful, isn’t He? He gave me the first of many chances to hiss and move on from that hearing. I didn’t take it. I wanted more.
That Jeff Sessions is a Washington veteran through and through.
What you’d call a typical politician. And, except you had overwhelming reasons to hate the guy, you’d probably like him. How can you hate a man who knows just the right moment to praise his administration’s efforts to curb crime, fight terrorists, deal with overdose problems even if it meant wasting the Committee’s time since, frankly, no one came here to hear that? Talk about killing two stones with one bird.
Mr Sessions had been Senator representing Alabama for 20 years before he was appointed Attorney-General by Donald Trump in February. This fact – that he’d been one of those who were now questioning him for so many years – was not lost on anyone throughout the testimony. He referred to the Senators as “colleagues” at least 6 times dring his opening remarks. And he did so even after he’d himself, acknowledged that he could no longer call them colleagues. The subtle assertion of his equality with his “investigators”.
Something like: “I am not intimidated by you guys”.
Watch this exchange between him and (the ever sharp) Senator Kamala Harris. It’s full of all Jeff Sessions’ tricks:
Full of blackmail (“if I don’t qualify it, you’ll say I’m lying”… “being rushed makes me nervous” LoL); full of filibustering (talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union??? Wow) and he took every opportunity to brag and reel out his credentials (15 years with the DOJ and 12 as a U.S Attorney) to the black, female freshman Senator who apparently thought she could floor him with a line of questioning that threatened to reveal that he had not properly prepared for the hearing.
Did you see the way he laughed when he realized he’d wasted so much of her question time rambling without quite providing any real answers? Trump must be so proud of you ol’ man Sessions!
By the way, Senator Kamala Harris deserves a separate post because she’s proving to be all that and some more.
That you should probably never let yourself be smiled at by Jeff Sessions
You saw it in the clip with Senator Harris – the Sessions’ smile. There’s no way to say it nicely; the man smiles weirdly.
These people have even gone as far as to call it “creepy”.
Actually, these is a legitimate concern for many it appears. Senator John Lewis shares my sentiments. He warned his colleagues during Sessions’ January confirmation hearings that they mustn’t let: “how Senator Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how he may speak to you, but we need someone who gonna stand up, speak up, and speak out for the people that need help, for people that have been discriminated against”.
If you are looking for Donald Trump’s strongest allies, Jeff Sessions’ name better find it’s way to the top of your list
The man not only snatched prime opportunity to reel off his own credentials, he also reeled off what he considered to be achievements of the Trump administration during his opening remarks; long before things got the chance to get ugly. Like if I can’t clear up anything for you guys here because of “executive privilege”, I better get these out – let the MSM records show that Trump has done this and that and even much more.
But the best proof of his total loyalty to Trump during the hearing was probably when Senator Risch asked if he’d have walked out of the Trump campaign he’d heard a “whisper or a suggestion or anyone saying the Russians were involved [in Trump’s campaign], Attorney-General Sessions literally said “Maybe”.
Meaning: “even if I’d known they were colluding with Russians to subvert U.S elections, I’m not sure I’d have stopped backing Trump”.
Let the all the records show the kind of guy Sessions is!
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