Trump Goes Bonkers on Twitter, Says Sessions is ‘Scared Stiff’

Donald Trump went bonkers on Twitter on Saturday, accusing Attorney General Jeff Sessions of being “scared stiff and missing in action.” It was the latest episode in his ongoing attacks against his own Justice Department. The president continues to say that people in his administration acted inappropriately in their investigation of his presidential campaign’s connections with Russia.

Referring to dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British spy, Trump wrote:

“The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele’s many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary & the DNC….”

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Trump mentioned Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and Ohr’s wife Nellie,  — whose name he misspelled as “Nelly” — because he said Nellie Ohr works for Fusion GPS, the research firm that hired Steele to compile the dossier.

“….Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE.” I have never seen anything so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty. IG Report soon?  Witch Hunt!”

For years Trump has been saying (incorrectly) that Steele’s dossier led to the initial involvement of the Justice Department which in turn led to Mueller’s investigation. In fact a congressional report disclosed that the DOJ involvement began months before the Steele dossier was created, after they received a tip about George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign affairs adviser. Despite the truth, Trump won’t let go of his baseless allegations.

Trump has also repeatedly attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from Special Counsel Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling. On August first the president appeared to demand that Sessions intervene and stop the Mueller probe when he tweeted “Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt now.”

Saturday’s comments by Trump were a response to a statement by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which is suing the Justice Department for records of communications involving Ohr, his wife, Steele and Fusion GPS. Judicial Watch has also filed a lawsuit seeking text messages and emails of Andrew McCabe relating to his wife, a pediatric emergency physician who ran unsuccessfully for the Virginia state Senate in 2015.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton appeared on Fox News’s “Hannity” to promote his case.

“We’re fighting the FBI over text messages for the corrupt FBI official Andrew McCabe,” Fitton said. “The FBI doesn’t want to turn over one text message to us.”

The Justice Department denied the Freedom of Information Act request, saying the search parameters for McCabe’s communications were too broad.

Sessions fired McCabe earlier this year, days before his scheduled retirement, following months of public criticism by Trump. Sessions said he took the action on the recommendation of FBI investigators who argued McCabe had been dishonest about his role in an October 2016 Wall Street Journal article on an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

Trump’s attacks on Sessions at this point seem to be nothing more than another desperate attempt by him to deflect attention from his legal troubles, but clearly it won’t work.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.