NY Times: Trump Ordered Top White House Lawyer to Block Sessions From Recusing Himself From Russia Investigations

‘The President Erupted in Anger in Front of Numerous White House Officials, Saying He Needed His Attorney General to Protect Him’

President Donald Trump ordered his top White House lawyer to block Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself from the DOJ’s Russia investigations, The New York Times reports Thursday evening. The bombshell report also states that President Trump repeatedly has denounced the Attorney General for not protecting him. 

“President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election,” The Times reports.

White House counsel Don McGahn attempted to carry out the president’s orders, but when he failed, “the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him. Mr. Trump said he had expected his top law enforcement official to safeguard him the way he believed Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, had done for his brother John F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr. had for Barack Obama.”

Mr. Trump then asked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” He was referring to his former personal lawyer and fixer, who had been Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s top aide during the investigations into communist activity in the 1950s and died in 1986.

There is no evidence Eric Holder “protected” President Obama.

The Times also reports “that four days before Mr. Comey was fired, one of Mr. Sessions’s aides asked a congressional staff member whether he had damaging information about Mr. Comey, part of an apparent effort to undermine the F.B.I. director.”

FBI Director Jim Comey had testified before Congress just before President Trump fired him. Comey refused to tell lawmakers if the president was or was not under investigation, which angered Trump.

“White House aides gave updates to Mr. Trump throughout” the hearing, “informing him of Mr. Comey’s refusal to publicly clear him. Mr. Trump unloaded on Mr. Sessions, who was at the White House that day. He criticized him for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, questioned his loyalty, and said he wanted to get rid of Mr. Comey. He repeated the refrain that the attorneys general for Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Obama had protected the White House.”

Two days after Mr. Comey’s testimony, an aide to Mr. Sessions approached a Capitol Hill staff member asking whether the staffer had any derogatory information about the F.B.I. director. The attorney general wanted one negative article a day in the news media about Mr. Comey, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting.

To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.

If you find NCRM valuable, would you please consider making a donation to support our independent journalism?