*except Roger Stone

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Have you seen the entire 2+ minutes of the exchange between Stuart Smalley and Jeff Sessions? They were both babbling idiots. Poorly asked and poorly answered.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

I am wondering about the functionality of your internet access today.

What was the first outlet to report this? Who was their source? From what I've seen the WaPo was first to report and DOJ (i.e. Jeff Sessions) was reported to be the source.

If you are thinking that these were moles within the DOJ, and it just so happens that Jeff Sessions was primed to talk about this last night and this morning and his spokespeople were prepared as well, then I think you are the one with the imagination. ;) Thus, no fake news comments on this one.

Here's the clue: if it was a mole, then the WaPo would have ID'd their source as "sources within the DOJ who have requested anonymity as they are not authorized to release the information."

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

And that's a fair point.

Even the most careful and best prepared witnesses misunderstand questions and make mistakes. It's generally the job of the examiner to clarify. Franken didn't necessarily ask a bad question. His mistake was not following it up. But in fairness, it probably wasn't a big issue at the time, and he probably didn't feel the need to follow up.

That said, this wasn't a trial. Sessions wasn't a witness only answering questions. He was a nominee, and he should have supplemented the record once it became apparent that this answer was misleading. And I don't believe for a minute that he or his staff didn't notice very shortly thereafter that his response was misleading.

From the WaPo article.
In a statement issued Wednesday night, Sessions said he “never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/...m_term=.0ca595166137

Yes. I saw that and that is what I was referencing earlier when I wrote that he had responses ready (and spokespeople) when the issue came out. To me it is clear that they put it out there. Do you disagree?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Yes I disagree.The issue did not come out from Sessions, he did not offer it up. The story broke from other sources. Even in your own words above, he had a response to the issue coming out.

Interesting. To what sources have you seen the story attributed?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

H- wrote:

Quote:

The issue did not come out from Sessions, he did not offer it up. The story broke from other sources.

Interesting. To what sources have you seen the story attributed?

From the same article linked above, you can conclude that based on this part of the report "The Washington Post contacted all 26 members of the 2016 Senate Armed Services Committee to see whether any lawmakers besides Sessions met with Kislyak in 2016. Of the 20 lawmakers who responded, every senator, including Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), said they did not meet with the Russian ambassador last year. The other lawmakers on the panel did not respond as of Wednesday evening." that WaPo was working on this article before Wednesday night, the time that Sessions had his response. The response was a reaction to a story breaking about his concealment of the meeting with the Kislyak.

The news conference is on in the other room ... How in the world did Sessions become a senator and AG? Based on his performance on the mic, he does not compare favorably to many of the business leaders I've interacted with over the past 20 years.

I guess I used to live in a fantasy world where people were actually qualified for the job.

drn92

While I am no fan of Sessions, he was a US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama for 12 years. I wouldn't call him a business leader.

Sessions , A man of his word recuses himself from any investigations about the campaign.
What a breath of fresh air compaired to the last two maggots that were our AG.

Yes. I saw that and that is what I was referencing earlier when I wrote that he had responses ready (and spokespeople) when the issue came out. To me it is clear that they put it out there. Do you disagree?

Even if they were ready to put it out there, which I don't agree with, why would they do it just after Trump finally had people saying good things about his Presidency and months after his testimony?

It makes no sense.

If they were planning to come out, at a minimum it was because they knew the story was coming.

Fair enough. Still, he needs some media training.

drn92

I love Obama. Greatest president ever! He'll come save the day.

I'll Trump your Obama.

Something up with the internet maybe. When I click on the WaPo article, it attributes the information to "Justice Department officials." Same thing in the original WaPo article I read breaking the story. I can't find anything indicating that the source of information about Sessions meetings was other than DOJ.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

You have all the information but don't see it. Since January 10 people were not saying good things about Trump. When you are already under attack, is that a good time to put out some dirty laundry? When is a good time for Trump to deal with a problem involving one of his guys? He's already had the Flynn problem. So how about waiting till when he is riding high?

They have been sitting on this, my guess is, since January 11th. Either Sessions or an aide realized the mistake immediately or afterwards. Sessions has guys reviewing what he said just for this purpose.

The only source for the info about meetings that I've seen is "Justice Department officials." Were officials in the DOJ investigating who Sessions shook hands with after giving a Heritage Foundation speech to a bunch of diplomats? Only Sessions himself or a few people close to him could have given that information to someone within the DOJ. No way Sessions didn't know that DOJ officials had this info.

As a media play, this is nothing new. Been standard practice for years. Got bad news, "leak" it out of your administration, or department, to the press. They decided this was not something Sessions needed to admit to -- look at his statement insisting that he did not talk to the Russians about the campaign. Standard play in this case is leak it and take some hits for a couple days.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Typically when you know bad information is coming out, you try to get ahead of it and speak to it before the hostile media gets it, via a more sympathetic media outlet. The Trump Admin has done the opposite, denying everything until it comes out, and then saying, um, well yeah, ok, there was that meeting, but no others.

Why was Trump's son in law meeting with the Russian ambassador?