As Donald Trump’s Russia story continues to grow, as parts of the unsubstantiated dossier become corroborated in part – substantiating parts of the dossier that contribute to the conclusion that Trump knowingly colluded with the Russians to help get himself elected, he “liked” a tweet about Senator Al Franken accusing Attorney Jeff Sessions of perjury.
Here’s the screen grab (h/t to Kyle Griffin):
There’s nothing in this story that would lead a sane president to want to call attention to it. After running down Franken’s obvious comment that it is perjury to lie under oath, which it appears Sessions did given his now not two but THREE contacts with Russians during the campaign (trickle trickle little star, the meetings keep being dropped), Fox went to great pains to explain Sessions’ reasons for lying, which frankly do not read as very legitimate.
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Sessions maintains that his answer to a question from Franken was correct.
Franken had asked Sessions in January what he would do if he learned of evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign had been in touch with the Russian government in the course of the campaign
Sessions responded that he himself had not had “communications with the Russians.” Sessions said Monday that he answered the question the way he did because Franken had raised allegations of continuing communication between Trump associates and intermediaries for the Russian government.
Right. And the contact was continuing. And now we now it was three times, when Sessions had just amended his previously false Senate statement to update none to twice. Follow the deception.
Trump liked this story that came out on the same day as the poll showing that a majority of Americans want Sessions to resign and think he lied under oath.
Yesterday we also got a lot more confirmations of Trump himself being in the know regarding changing the Republican Party platform to benefit Russia in regards to the Ukraine, as well as the Trump campaign being behind visits with Russian officials.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow devoted a full hour to Trump’s Russia scandal Wednesday evening, “With each passing day, more parts of this dossier get corroborated, get supported by the facts, and previous denials by the Trump campaign whether it’s about Jeff Sessions, whether it’s about Carter Page, whether it’s about Mike Flynn, whether it’s about that Ukraine platform, whether it’s about Paul Manafort. Their previous denials are all falling apart.”
As Donald Trump dismantles the American values that threaten Putin, including as pointed out by Maddow last night massively underfunding and cutting off at the knees our State Department, the growing question is who all is behind this destroy western democracy plot.
The new information being dropped strongly suggests that Trump himself knows about it and is making decisions about it. This is not yet an established fact. When and if it is, it will be “collusion”.
Meanwhile Republicans in Congress seem to have lost all patriotism, and friends or members of the Trump campaign/ Russia are conveniently installed to run both investigations in the House and the Senate, and Sessions – yet another Trump campaign Russia connection – the boss of the person who will be in charge of the DoJ investigation.
America is at grave risk right now, and Donald Trump is at risk. So what does he do? He likes a story about his Attorney General being accused of committing perjury.
Perhaps this is why Trump liked this story. Because he is so sure he is getting away with all of this, like he has gotten away with basic thuggery through “lawyers” his entire life.
This isn’t at all unusual for Trump. All during the campaign, he signaled what he was doing, crowing about it in advance gleefully like a child who peeked at his Christmas presents.
Trump isn’t a subtle person, nor does he need to be. His followers are so conditioned to believe him no matter what, they are already sure President Obama is the one at risk of ending up in jail. They also think they are on the right side of this, when all evidence and reality suggests otherwise.
It will be the intelligence communities working with the press whose reporting incentivize the people that will bring the Trump administration to account on Russia. Republicans have shown no signs of the courage or will to put an actual independent investigation behind their empty words.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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