Trump's Russia headache gets worse, as Sessions struggles to spin undisclosed meetings
By James Hohmann March 2 at 9:19 AM
THE BIG IDEA: Jeff Sessions wakes up this morning with potentially serious legal and political problems.
-- The attorney general and his team are in damage-control mode, trying to explain confusing and seemingly inconsistent statements.
-- A handful of top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and Claire McCaskill, called for his resignation overnight. Others are expected to follow in the coming hours. Many more are clamoring for a special prosecutor, both to explore whether Sessions should be charged with perjury for making apparently false statements to Congress and more broadly to explore links between Trump campaign officials and Russia during the election. There is consensus among Democrats in both chambers that Sessions must, at the very least, immediately recuse himself from all Russia-related investigations to preserve the integrity of the Justice Department and the ongoing FBI investigation, something he has repeatedly resisted.
-- Notably, few Republican lawmakers are rushing to vocally defend their longtime colleague this morning. Some worry about what shoes might drop next.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on “Morning Joe” that Sessions should recuse himself. “I don’t have all the information in front of me, I don’t want to prejudge, but I just think for any investigation going forward, you want to make sure everybody trusts the investigation,” he said. “I think it’d be easier from that standpoint.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/03/02/daily-202-trump-s-russia-headache-gets-worse-as-sessions-struggles-to-spin-undisclosed-meetings/58b745cae9b69b1406c75d1b/?utm_term=.1aecffd85f6f&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1