Trump Openly Humiliated Jeff Sessions After Mueller Appointment
President Trump reportedly openly humiliated his own Attorney General after learning of Bob Mueller's appointment.
The New York Times is reporting that President Trump basically humiliated Attorney General Sessions in front of a number of White House aides and officials after he learned about the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate the issues surrounding Russian involvement in the 2016 election:
WASHINGTON — Shortly after learning in May that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate links between his campaign associates and Russia, President Trump berated Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an Oval Office meeting and said he should resign, according to current and former administration officials and others briefed on the matter.
The president attributed the appointment of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation — a move Mr. Trump believes was the moment his administration effectively lost control over the inquiry. Accusing Mr. Sessions of “disloyalty,” Mr. Trump unleashed a string of insults on his attorney general.
Ashen and emotional, Mr. Sessions told the president he would quit and sent a resignation letter to the White House, according to four people who were told details of the meeting. Mr. Sessions would later tell associates that the demeaning way the president addressed him was the most humiliating experience in decades of public life.
The Oval Office meeting, details of which have not previously been reported, shows the intensity of Mr. Trump’s emotions as the Russia investigation gained steam and how he appeared to immediately see Mr. Mueller’s appointment as a looming problem for his administration. It also illustrates the depth of antipathy Mr. Trump has had for Mr. Sessions — one of his earliest campaign supporters — and how the president interprets “disloyalty” within his circle of advisers.
Mr. Trump ended up rejecting Mr. Sessions’s May resignation letter after senior members of his administration argued that dismissing the attorney general would only create more problems for a president who had already fired an F.B.I. director and a national security adviser. Mr. Trump once again, in July, told aides he wanted to remove Mr. Sessions, but for a second time didn’t take action.
The relationship between the two men has improved marginally since midsummer, as Mr. Sessions has made a public display of hunting for the leakers among the administration’s national security officials. His allies said that despite the humiliation, the attorney general has stayed in the job because he sees a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity as the nation’s top law enforcement official to toughen the country’s immigration policies.
But he may be losing that battle as well. Mr. Sessions played a prominent role announcing the end of the Obama-era program that provided protection to the children of undocumented immigrants, only to see his boss backtrack on the policy. On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump confirmed he had reached a deal with Democrats to provide protections for the so-called Dreamers.
This account is based on interviews with seven administration officials and others familiar with the interactions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions in recent months who requested anonymity because they are not permitted to speak publicly about confidential conversations between the president and his aides. Politico first reported in July that Mr. Sessions had once offered his resignation letter, but the circumstances that prompted the letter — and Mr. Trump’s dressing down of the attorney general — have not previously been reported.
Press officers for the White House and Justice Department declined to comment.
The president’s outburst came in the middle of an Oval Office meeting that Mr. Trump had with top advisers on May 17 to discuss candidates to take over the F.B.I. after the president fired its director, James B. Comey, earlier that month. In addition to Mr. Sessions, Vice President Mike Pence; Donald F. McGahn II,; the White House counsel; and several other aides attended the meeting.
In the middle of the meeting, Mr. McGahn received a phone call from Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who had been overseeing the Russia investigation since Mr. Sessions recused himself from the inquiry months earlier. Mr. Sessions had stepped aside after it was revealed he had not provided accurate testimony to Congress about his meetings with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign.
In the telephone call to Mr. McGahn, Mr. Rosenstein said he had decided to appoint Mr. Mueller to be a special counsel for the investigation. Congress had been putting pressure on Mr. Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel to put distance between the Trump administration and the Russia investigation, and just the day before The New York Times had revealed that Mr. Trump had once asked Mr. Comey to end the F.B.I.’s investigation into Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser.
When the phone call ended, Mr. McGahn relayed the news to the president and his aides. Almost immediately, Mr. Trump lobbed a volley of insults at Mr. Sessions, telling the attorney general it was his fault they were in the current situation. Mr. Trump told Mr. Sessions that choosing him to be attorney general was one of the worst decisions he had made, called him an “idiot,” and said that he should resign.
An emotional Mr. Sessions told the president he would resign and left the Oval Office. That evening, as the Justice Department publicly announced the appointment of Mr. Mueller, the attorney general wrote a brief resignation letter to the president that was later sent to the White House. A person familiar with the events raised the possibility that Mr. Sessions had become emotional because the impact of his recusal was becoming clear.
In the hours after the Oval Office meeting, however, Mr. Trump’s top advisers intervened to save Mr. Sessions’s job. Mr. Pence; Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist at the time; and Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, all advised that accepting Mr. Sessions’s resignation would only sow more chaos inside the administration and rally Republicans in Congress against the president. Mr. Sessions, a former Alabama senator, served in the Senate for two decades.
The president relented, and eventually returned the resignation letter to Mr. Sessions — with a handwritten response on it.
The report goes on to note that the Oval Office berating was a particularly hard blow for Sessions, who had made no secret of his desire to possibly serve as Attorney General in a Republican Administration and who gave up what was arguably one of the safest seats in the U.S. Senate to take the job with Trump. Sessions also put his own credibility inside the Republican Party at risk when he became one of Trump’s earliest and most outspoken supporters on Capitol Hill, and the first Republican Senator to endorse him in a race that, at the time, was still very much up in the air. Additionally, regardless of what one might think of him, and my own opinions are generally negative due to his positions on important civil liberties issues, it is true that he did absolutely the right thing when he decided to recuse himself from supervision of the investigation into Russian interference in the election given what came to light regarding his meetings with the Russian Ambassador after he had endorsed Trump. Granted, he likely only did so because of the public outcry that developed once those meetings came to light, but in the end, he made the right choice and deserves some credit for that. Trump apparently sees this recusal as the start of the chain of events that led to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel, but there’s a good possibility that there would have been such an appointment even if Sessions had not recused himself due to the political reality of what had come to light between the time of his recusal and Mueller’s appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
This reported dressing down wasn’t the last time that Trump went after his own Attorney General. At several points during the summer as the Russia investigation has gotten closer to Trump’s inner circle, Trump has attacked Sessions on Twitter and in interviews where he made it clear that he was upset about the fact that Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation. In July, there was even open speculation that Trump was on the verge of firing Sessions and replacing him with someone such as former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. While that speculation proved to be unfounded, at least so far, it makes clear that the recusal continues to be something that bothers Trump specifically because he believes it is what led to Mueller’s appointment and the expansion of the investigation.
More than anything else, this story demonstrates what kind of person Donald Trump is to work for, and it’s largely consistent with reports that we’ve seen from people who worked closely with him over the years but have since left, or been shunned from, his inner circle. Without fail, these people described a person who was quite often impatient with aides and quick to yell at someone who wasn’t doing what he thought they should be doing, who had openly disagreed with him, or who had been involved in a project that suffered difficulties even when it clearly wasn’t their fault. He has also been someone who frequently berates even close aides openly and in front of others often in the same humiliating manner he did to Sessions as described in the Times report. Granted, some of these tales were being told by people who had left on bad terms and could have been exaggerations, but there were enough of them that it appeared to show that Trump behind the scenes is mercurial, inconsistent, and hotheaded and often someone who berates those close to him when something goes wrong even when, as here, they clearly had nothing to do with it. It’s also consistent with some of the more colorful leaks that have come out of the Administration over the past several months regarding Trump’s behavior when the cameras are off. For example, there have been reports in the past of people such as Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon being addressed in a similar manner and CNN reported in late August that Trump had not spoken with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell since earlier in the month after a phone conversation where Trump went off on a tirade directed at Republicans on Capitol Hill in general and McConnell specifically. The only people who seem to be exempted from this treatment, at least as far as we know, are family members such as Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Trump sycophants would argue that this is merely Trump being Trump and how business people in Trump’s position often act, but it seems as though it’s worse with Trump and that we’re dealing with a guy who has a personality that clearly isn’t suited to being President of the United States.
In any case, Sessions remains as Attorney General for now, but one wonders if anyone is safe with Trump as their boss.
If only someone had said that Trump does not have the appropriate temperament to be President!
You don’t get points for doing the right thing. You’re supposed to do the right thing.
It’s important I think to start with the fact that Trump knows at some deep level that he is inadequate, that he’s a fraud. It’s the essential psychopath’s dilemma: what if everyone finds out what you are? What if they realize what you yourself know, which is that you’re almost all bluff and bullsh!t? You’re the emperor and your new clothes are only beautiful till someone in the crowd yells out the obvious, and then, instantly, your power evaporates.
Trump is insecure, needy, narcissistic, in trouble up to his clown hair and terrified, laughably ignorant about what being president does and does not mean, and not really even slightly interested in policy. He bullies as an essential part of his screen of bullsh!t, his bluff.
All the mommies and daddies down through the ages have been wrong about bullies: they are not secretly cowards in the sense that they’ll back down, they are secretly weak. Weakness is the source of the bullying, you bully to conceal your own vulnerability. It’s the weakness that defines Trump and makes him a bully.
At this point the fear must be crushing. I’ve been in the crosshairs of cops and prosecutors not a tenth as scary as what Mueller has going on. It’s not a good feeling. I wonder if Trump has yet realized what came to me in a depressing flash of insight many long years ago: the game is not really Fox and Hounds. A criminal wants to believe he’s a clever fox evading the baying hounds, but the reality is that the criminal is more like a man on a tightrope, and the law is the floor. Sooner or later the floor wins.
Trump is not winning. He’s scared, out-of-his-depth, the fraudulent leader of a cult, dimly aware that it’s all crashing down around him. He’s Jim Jones with Congressman Leo Ryan on his way.
@Jon:
Thank you. Exactly. I thought this when everyone was going gaga over the dude in Florida who gave the last generator to a woman whose father would otherwise have died. People marveled. Called him a hero. No, what he was was a decent human being behaving the way a decent human being does. It is depressing to think that simply not being a flaming aszhole is now seen as something deserving of praise.
this story demonstrates what kind of person Donald Trump is to work for
Yes, it’s too bad Trump can’t be a gentle and retiring soul like LBJ.
And by the way, it’s not exactly like there aren’t a bunch of stories of Hillary Clinton being an abusive jackass to subordinates. Is it somehow a lesser character flaw to scream at a Secret Service agent for just doing their job?
Mike
Suck my balls, Jefferson Beauregard Bedford Forrest Sessions III.
@michael reynolds: It’s important I think to start with the fact that Trump knows at some deep level that he is inadequate
Hey! How’s that how Trump/Russia money laundering delusion working out for you?
Mike
Sounds a lot like the way people spoke of working with Steve Jobs.
@MBunge:
Jesus dude, read the news. I’m not here to provide you with a recap. But the short version is: a lot more smiles over here on the Left. Manafort and Flynn will both be charged with multiple felonies, including money-laundering in Manafort’s case. We’ve got Baby Trump on false statements and Big Trump dead-to-rights on obstruction of justice. His money-laundering and treason will follow.
Here’s how to do a lazy cultist’s news biopsy: watch the first 10 minutes of Hannity, then watch the first 10 minutes of Maddow. Read the room. Tell me who’s winning.
@JKB:
The difference being that Jobs wasn’t a moron.
@MBunge:
Oh, and I totally forgot Jared! Yeah, Jared’s going to prison, too. Possibly Ivanka. The Number of the Beast: 666. If you ever get near an actual news source you can figure out what that means.
The scorpion bites the frog.
While I don’t think it’s appropriate for the president to humiliate his AG, I have no tears for Sessions. If he thinks that Trump was demeaning, he should step into my office.
@MBunge: The difference is that LBJ actually accomplished quite a lot.
Trump is a fat bloated old idiot with the temperment of a toddler on crack.
@MBunge:
LBJ, a Texan for christs sake, got the Civil Rights act passed.
@JKB: re: Steve Jobs. You have a good point. Jobs had the reputation of being a total jerk when he saw something he didn’t like. But there is an important difference between working for Trump and working for Jobs: I can name a half dozen or more people who reported to Jobs whose career blossomed under him. Jon Ivy is a legend and could work anywhere he wanted. Tim Cook went on to head the company after Jobs died and it has never done better (contrary to my own prediction). Various heads of departments have gone on to great success at other companies or have founded their own. Many of them stood toe to toe with Jobs and told him was wrong, marshaled the evidence and Jobs conceded. Apple products are better for that.
Quick. Name one single person who spent any significant time working for Trump that is anything more than a non-entity. Someone once told me that A Level people hire other A levels, but B level people hire C’s. What is Trump? A D? An E or an F? Jeff Sessions, who thought he was an A leveler because that’s what lobbyists tell Senators all day and all night, found out that Trump thinks he’s no more more than a stupid flunky. Trump doesn’t understand what appointing someone to an independent office means. He thought he was hiring Jeff as a personal employee, and all of his previous hires were either naive nubies or… washed up flunkies.
@michael reynolds: Well said, and kudos to Jon, too. To play the opposition for just a moment, you are both right, people are supposed to do the right thing. And yet, when someone has done the wrong thing and subsequently does the right thing (especially if this someone is a child), we often praise them for recouping what can be salvaged of their honor for the purpose of encouraging that someone to continue on the right path.
As Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions should be encouraged to not resort to lying as his first practice. Moreover as he is clearly entering his “second childhood,” praising him for finally doing the right thing should be encouraged because even Jeff Sessions is not too old to, finally, learn to behave in a virtuous manner.
@JKB: Yes, and Steve Jobs was a sociopath, too. I do realize that JKBekistanstan, being rich and successful at business makes being a sociopath a good thing, but I thought I’d make the point anyway. You, too, are not to old to learn, finally, to behave in a more virtuous, or at least more civil, manner–although in your case, I suspect that it’s like the Confederacy and other White Supremacist dreams, another lost cause.
@MBunge: Rather than bring up Hillary for no apparent reason at every turn, I’d personally prefer comparing Trump to someone who was President, like say, Obama.
Remember that time when Obama had that tantrum about something or another and blamed everybody around him like an itsy-bitsy racist baby because his IQ is in the double digits? Oh yeah, me neither. Because that was Trump.
Good on Trump. Sessions must have led a very restricted life.
@MBunge:
Mr. Bunge, let me give you a friendly tip. Attacking LBJ doesn’t bother liberals. We never liked him. The crazies among us libbies thought that he was complicit in the death of JFK. The sheep amongst us (I was one at the time) thought that he was unworthy of succeeding JFK because he was a little vulgar, and the thinkers thought that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was b.s. and a pretext for getting into a war that the US was bound to lose. We marched along singing “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today.”
We liked Adlai Stevenson. That’s who you should target to get maximum liberal ire.
@JKB: Yeah and I would have walked out on both of those assholes in a NY second. With Jobs tho, I might have hesitated at the door.
And you know what? Sessions is just as weak and sniveling as Trump. He couldn’t stand up to Trump and in his humiliation, he goes at the weak and powerless. Like immigrants and the poor.
Birds of a feather.
@MBunge: Why do you feel the need to defend this guy? He’s a grade A a**hole.
Sooo, all of you “men” calling Donald Trump a moron. Clearly you are capable of judging a man a “moron” because…you are successful millionaires that have built enormous companies employing thousands?? I thought so, because to call Trump a “moron” you would clearly have to be doing better than he at business! What THIS article shows, is how an article turns out depending upon the bias of the writer. This article could also EASILY be confused as so much tabloid blather. THIS is journalism??? What a joke! What is ALSO clear is WHY Trump would be SO scared about the investigation!! Dont forget the mountain of evidence they collected proving Trump colluded with Russia! Wait…you mean they havent uncovered even ONE SPECK of evidence in the case?!?! What EVER happened to the four W’s of journalism?! The four W’s that distinguish the difference between a news article or an editorial?! WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE!!! If these so-called “jouralists” today had to write a NEWS article BASED ON FACTS, they wouldnt know where to start!!
@Mel: Do the Russians pay extra for capitalized letters?
@Joe: The question you must ask is WHY has the MSM, led by the NYT’s… dredged up this ancient story ? Is Sessions on the verge of announcing something against their beloved Deep State?
@Mel:
Peasants do love them a czar to worship. The impulse to tug the forelock and toady is strong in many people.
Wealth does not equal virtue or intelligence or competence, it just equals wealth. And given that Mr. Five Times Bankrupt almost certainly has kept his ramshackle company alive on laundered Russian mob money, not something to brag about.
@LanieLou5:
If you were in regular contact with reality you’d see that this is about the 900th about Trump’s appalling behavior. So this doesn’t necessarily presage anything, but is a small part of the overwhelming case of Trump’s corruption, submission to Putin and treason.
@Mel: I prefer businessmen who haven’t gone bankrupt.
Sooo, all of you “men” calling Donald Trump a moron
I call Trump “a self confessed sexual molestor of women.”
Because he is!
@Han: Based on the years Trump tried to get a Trump Tower deal done in Moscow, so do the Russians.
…dredged up this ancient story?
Four months makes it ancient!
By this measure you must out of the retirement home and in to the museum!
Trump inherited hundreds of millions and his company and since then has declared bankruptcy what, 5 times? Sounds like a real Business Genius.
@Mel:
@Mel:
Let’s be clear, no one begrudges Donald Trump his millionaire status. Out here in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, very successful business people abound.
Donald Trump was very successful at being born to the right family.To be fair, he has been extremely successful in branding himself as a premier deal maker, and in presenting his company brand as emblematic of (albeit, rich trash) luxury and quality. He has also been successful in bankruptcy court proceedings many times, in divorce negotiations a few times, and he has successfully required employee and advisors to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Is Trump a “moron”? Well, as you know, he’s told us repeatedly, otherwise. As he said to Fox News’ Chris Wallace, in explaining his disinterest in receiving daily Intelligence Briefings:
Now of course his attitude begs the question, how the hell would he know if anything had changed if he don’t attend Briefings, but, I guess being “a smart person’ he would somehow know in advance, right?
@Slugger:
While it is true that LBJ was deeply hated on the left in the late 1960s, in recent years I’ve heard a lot of LBJ glorification among liberals and lefties, who either ignore or forgive him for the Vietnam debacle and focus their attention on things like Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the War on Poverty, and his overall reputation as a legislative he-man. Throughout the Obama years I was constantly hearing frustrated liberals asking “Why can’t Obama be more like LBJ?” I heard it from commenters here at OTB. One of the main strands of the Green Lantern theory of the presidency is what Brendan Nyhan calls the “LBJ version,” the notion that “if the president only tried harder to win over congress they would vote through his legislative agenda.”
@Mel:
Trump is not a successful millionaire, he is basically a celebrity that owns some hotels and condos in New York, a golf club in New Jersey, another in Florida and that basically lends his name to buildings that other people build.
@al-Ameda:
He picks up the information from “the shows,” so he doesn’t need to attend any briefings. The shows always know stuff before the briefers do. Don’t you know anything about being in charge?
@Andre Kenji: You left “highly leveraged” out of the description of the properties that Trump owns.