Fear: Trump in the White House(72)
“I’m never quitting.” Trump would have to fire him.
“You promise me you’ll never quit?”
“Yeah.”
“Because it’s going to get worse.”
“What do you mean?” Sessions asked.
“It’s all a diversion.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jared’s testifying.” Trump’s son-in-law was appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday and the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. “They didn’t think they had enough cover.”
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” Sessions said.
“He’d fucking do that to you in a second. He’s doing it to you! You watch! When Jared finishes testifying, if they think it’s good testimony, he’ll stop tweeting.”
On July 24 Kushner released a long, carefully lawyered statement ahead of his congressional appearance. “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.”
The Trump attacks on Sessions subsided for a while. It was a sideshow, a diversion. He did believe Sessions had failed him, though, so it was a diversion with conviction.
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Trump’s attacks on Sessions awakened Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Graham said Sessions “believes in the rule of law.” Other Republicans defended their former colleague and said it would not be easy to get a replacement confirmed by the Senate. Deputy Rod Rosenstein might resign. It could cascade into a Watergate-like situation reminiscent of the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, when Nixon fired the special prosecutor and the attorney general and his deputy both resigned. Priebus worried that could make the Comey problem look like child’s play.
Trump subjected Sessions to a withering attack in the Oval Office, calling him an “idiot.” Despite his promise to Bannon, Sessions sent a resignation letter to Trump. Priebus talked the president out of accepting it.
Recusing himself made the attorney general a “traitor,” Trump said to Porter. The president made fun of his Southern accent. “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner.” Trump even did a little impression of a Southern accent, mimicking how Sessions got all mixed up in his confirmation hearings, denying that he had talked to the Russian ambassador.
“How in the world was I ever persuaded to pick him for my attorney general?” Trump asked Porter. “He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama. What business does he have being attorney general?”
Trump would not stop. He told Porter, “If he was going to recuse himself from this, why did he let himself be picked attorney general? That was the ultimate betrayal. How could he have done that?”
Porter had an answer, which he presented as gently as he could. “There are well-established rules and guidelines for when you have to recuse yourself. And he met those. This wasn’t a political decision on his part. This wasn’t something he wanted to do. He consulted the relevant experts at the Department of Justice and was told you meet the criteria, so you have to.”
“Well,” Trump said angrily, “he never should have taken the job. He’s the attorney general. He can make these decisions on his own. He doesn’t have to listen to his staff. If he was that smart of a lawyer and he knew he was going to have to recuse himself, he should’ve told me and I never would’ve picked him. But he’s slow. He probably didn’t even know.”
CHAPTER
27
Priebus called a full senior staff meeting at 8 a.m. on July 20 on immigration. Stephen Miller made a presentation. To some, it amounted to a shopping list of issues—the border wall, border enforcement, catch and release, immigration judges, the diversity lottery, sanctuary cities, Kate’s Law—which would increase penalties for people who attempted to illegally reenter the U.S. after having been deported—and chain migration.
We need to select the winning issues, Miller said, the ones that are bad issues for the Democrats. We need to then convince the Senate to take on tough wedge issue votes such as defunding sanctuary cities.
Kushner strongly disagreed with Miller’s strategy. We need to focus on bipartisan, constructive things, and even find things we could give the Democrats—“a few of our priorities, a couple of theirs.” He wanted “a path forward so we can actually get something done.”
Priebus disagreed with Kushner. “I know the Hill. I know what’s going to be good in terms of these messaging votes.” A real estate developer from New York City like Jared didn’t know much about politics.
Jared protested. “I know how to get things done and be constructive and take people with disagreements and get them in the same place.”
Kushner said that most of the legislative discussions in the White House involved Priebus acolytes from the combative Republican National Committee, or from former senator Sessions’s office or from Pence’s stable of conservatives. None of them had experience negotiating bipartisan agreements or getting deals done. Extremists and people trying to score political points were running the legislative agenda.
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