8/28/2018

JEFF SESSIONS/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/MICHAEL COHEN/ROBERT MUELLER/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions punched back hard at President Donald Trump ‘s latest sneering criticism Thursday [8-23-18] as their long-running rift exploded into a public smackdown. Trump, concerned by the legal downfall of two former advisers, accused Sessions of failing to take control of the Justice Department , leading Sessions to declare that he and his department ‘will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.’ Trump’s anger with Sessions boiled over in an interview with Fox News in which the president also expressed frustration with the plea agreement his onetime legal ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen cut with prosecutors, including implicating Trump in a crime that Cohen admitted. Trump said it might be better if ‘flipping’ — cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for more favorable treatment— were illegal because people cooperating with the government ‘just make up lies’ to get favorable treatment…Trump has spent more than a year publicly and privately venting over Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the federal Russia-collusion investigation because he’d worked on Trump’s campaign. Trump, who blames that decision for the eventual appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, told ‘Fox and Friends’ host Ainsley Earhardt that Sessions ‘never took control of the Justice Department and it’s a sort of an incredible thing.'”

Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller, “Trump and Sessions spar as Trump rages,” The Los Angeles Times, August 27, 2018 5:30 pm