Donald Trump Says 'I Don't Have An Attorney General.' Now He Knows How I Feel.

Somebody's so getting fired after the midterms.

Jeff Sessions (Generated by JG JPEG Library)

Meanwhile, back in the world of white male lawyers who are racist and misogynist but who have not been credibly accused of attempted rape, President Donald Trump had this to say about his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. From the BBC:

“I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad,” Mr Trump said during Tuesday’s interview.

He added that he was “very disappointed” about Mr Sessions’ decision to leave the investigation.

Asked whether he would consider firing Mr Sessions, the president responded: “We’ll see what happens. A lot of people have asked me to do that.

Trump is almost certainly going to fire Jeff Sessions after the midterms, if Republicans hang onto the Senate. He’s probably going to try to fire him even if Republicans lose the Senate, and replace him with someone, almost anyone, who has already been Senate confirmed. Trump wants to fire Sessions like I want to fire James Dolan. He can’t right now, so like a Knicks fan, he’s left to belittle and humiliate him until an opportunity comes to oust him. The difference is that Trump actually can fire Sessions, whenever he wants, while Knicks fans have to wait for James Dolan to get Raptured to the Moon by Elon Musk.

Trump’s desire to fire Sessions is matched only by my own. We get there for entirely different reasons. Trump wants to fire Sessions because Sessions correctly recused himself from the Russia investigation, and refuses to turn the Justice Department into Donald Trump’s personal law firm charged with filing frivolous lawsuits against the President’s political enemies.

I want Sessions fired because he is the most effective henchman for implementing Trump’s policies of white supremacy. Sessions is using the full powers of the Justice Department to ethnically cleanse the country, and he knows how to use the power he’s been given.

Sessions defenders argue that any old person can deploy the Justice Department against black and brown citizens, but nobody else can stand up to Trump’s repeated demands to shut down the Mueller investigation. I think it’s the other way around. I think that there are other Republicans, at least the ones that could get confirmed by the Senate, who won’t be willing to shut down a legitimate investigation, and even if they’re willing to start illegitimate investigations into Trump’s political opponents, those investigations are unlikely to unearth anything that will change the course of democracy. But finding another person who is so willing and able to use all of an Attorney General’s power to harm vulnerable communities will be quite difficult.

Sponsored

Remember, Trump has a history of hiring wholly incompetent people to carry out his plans. He hires friends and cronies. He demands loyalty, but inspires none. Sessions is exceptional, he’s been preparing his whole life to do exactly this. He’s the Attorney General version of Nathan Beford Forrest, and I’m pretty sure the next guy he gets will be a lot closer to George Pickett.

The only thing that makes me happy about Sessions’s continued tenure as Attorney General is that Trump hates him as much as I do. I will allow that anything that causes Trump pain can’t be all bad.

Trump on Sessions: ‘I don’t have an attorney general’ [BBC]


Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Sponsored