DonViejo
DonViejo's JournalSean Spicer: Anyone asking for Sessions to recuse himself from Russia case should be 'ashamed'
Source: RawStory
BRAD REED
02 MAR 2017 AT 12:16 ET
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has come out swinging against anyone — including members of the Republican Party — who believes that Attorney General Jeff Sessions needs to recuse himself from investigations into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials.
In an excerpt released from a Fox News interview that will be aired in full on Friday, Spicer lashed out at people who are calling for Sessions to either resign or recuse himself.
“There’s nothing to recuse himself (from),” said Spicer. “He was 100% straight with the committee, and I think people who are choosing to play partisan politics with this should be ashamed of themselves.”
Sessions has come under fire for not disclosing at his Senate confirmation hearing that he twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/sean-spicer-anyone-asking-for-sessions-to-recuse-himself-from-russia-case-should-be-ashamed/
Kim Davis' lawyer is fighting to overturn Jacksonville's human rights ordinance
By Dawn Ennis · Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Liberty Counsel is pulling out all the stops to try to block the legally-enacted human rights ordinance approved last month by city leaders in Jacksonville, Fla., filing a lawsuit in Duval County Court Tuesday.
The plaintiff is an unknown figure named John Parsons, a local resident represented by Mat Staver and the conservative legal eagles who achieved fame as the lawyers for antigay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, and for recently being scolded by the U.S. Supreme Court for misgendering transgender student Gavin Grimm.
As the right-wing Christian law firm did with “marriage,” adding quotation marks around the word as if to question the legality of same-sex marriage, its news release announcing the suit refers to the HRO as “the so-called Jacksonville ‘Human Rights Ordinance.'”
As the right-wing Christian law firm did with “marriage,” adding quotation marks around the word as if to question the legality of same-sex marriage, its news release announcing the suit refers to the HRO as “the so-called Jacksonville ‘Human Rights Ordinance.'”
more
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/03/guess-whos-fighting-jacksonvilles-human-rights-ordinance-yup
White House: Sessions Was '100 Percent Straight' With Senate Committee
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ESME CRIBB Published MARCH 2, 2017, 11:55 AM EDT
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Thursday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was "100 percent straight" with a Senate committee during his confirmation hearing in January.
"He was 100 percent straight with the committee, and I think that people who are choosing to play partisan politics with this should be ashamed of themselves," Spicer said in a preview of an interview on "Fox and Friends."
Sessions denied during his confirmation hearing in January that he had "communications with Russians." On Thursday, however, Sessions' spokeswoman confirmed that Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice before the election.
Spicer also said there is no reason for Sessions to recuse himself from an investigation into any ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/white-house-sessions-was-100-percent-straight-with-senate-committee
ACLU calls for perjury investigation into Sessions: 'It's now clear' he 'plainly lied' under oath
Source: RawStory
DAVID EDWARDS
02 MAR 2017 AT 11:10 ET
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday called for an investigation into whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had not had contact with Russian officials.
According to Justice Department sources, Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 campaign even though he had suggested otherwise during his confirmation hearing.
“I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians,” Session told Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) at the time.
On Thursday, the ACLU said that an investigation into whether Sessions perjured himself was necessary for the “credibility of our democracy.”
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/aclu-calls-for-perjury-investigation-into-sessions-its-now-clear-he-plainly-lied-under-oath/
Kremlin says unaware of US Attorney Generals meetings with Russian envoy
Source: Reuters
02 MAR 2017 AT 07:48 ET
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday he was unaware that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, but said such meetings were routine.
Peskov was speaking after the Washington Post reported that Sessions had failed to disclose two meetings with Kislyak.
“I don’t know the details of any meetings,” said Peskov. “(But) the ambassador’s job is to hold as many meetings as possible.”
Peskov said talk of possible Russian involvement in the U.S. presidential campaign, something Moscow categorically denies, was an internal matter for the United States. But he said it served to create an atmosphere in which the idea of repairing U.S.-Russia ties was harder to sell.
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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/kremlin-says-unaware-of-us-attorney-generals-meetings-with-russian-envoy/
Busted again: Fox caught using 'militant Nazi' collaborator as expert on Swedish violence
DAVID EDWARDS
02 MAR 2017 AT 10:02 ET
Fox Business Network reportedly used a neo-Nazi collaborator to bolster President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Sweden was experiencing an uptick in violence due to Muslim immigrants.
Just days after Fox News host Bill O’Reilly admitted that his show falsely billed Nils Bildt as a Swedish national security adviser, the Swedish magazine Expo has uncovered a guest on the Fox Business Network who may be even more troubling.
On Feb. 21, Fox Business host Cheryl Casone asked “Swedish columnist Ingrid Carlqvist” to push back on the president’s critics without mentioning her guest’s right-wing extremist views or ties to the Swedish neo-Nazi movement, according to Expo.
“What the viewers are never told is that Ingrid Carlqvist has been a central player in the anti-Muslim counter-jihad movement,” the magazine reports on Thursday. “Nor are the viewers made aware that she recently accused ‘representatives of the ethnic group of Jews’ in Sweden of being behind Sweden’s cultural diversity, a conspiracy theory that Swedish nazis have long promoted.”
more
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/busted-again-fox-caught-using-militant-nazi-collaborator-as-expert-on-swedish-violence/
UPDATED - Cornyn: 'Premature' For Sessions To Recuse Himself From Russia Probe
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ESME CRIBB Published MARCH 2, 2017, 10:51 AM EDT
Tierney Sneed contributed reporting.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) said on Thursday that it would be "premature" for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from an investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in the wake of revelations that Sessions met twice with a Russian ambassador before the election.
"I think that's premature," Cornyn said in response to a question on whether Sessions should recuse himself from the probe.
"What we need to do is complete the investigation the Senate Intelligence Committee is having on a bipartisan basis, because we really don't know what the facts are," he said.
Cornyn said that nobody knows "what happened" when Session spoke with the ambassador. "I think that's why the investigation's so important," he said. "I think a bipartisan intelligence committee investigation is the way to go."
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-cornyn-premature-for-sessions-to-recuse-himself
UPDATE:
GOP Senator: 'It Would Be Best' For Sessions To Recuse Himself From Probe
By ESME CRIBB Published MARCH 2, 2017, 11:08 AM EDT
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) said Thursday that "it would be best" for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from a probe into any ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in the wake of revelations that Sessions met with Russia's ambassador to the United States before the election.
"Jeff Sessions is a former colleague and a friend, but I think it would be best for him and for the country to recuse himself from the DOJ Russia probe," Portman said in a statement.
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rob-portman-calls-for-sessions-to-recuse-himself
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Sen. Blunt: 'There's No Real Revelation' In WaPo Report
By MATT SHUHAM Published MARCH 2, 2017, 11:25 AM EDT
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said Thursday that “there’s no real revelation” in the Washington Post report Wednesday night that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the 2016 campaign.
Asked what he would do as attorney general about allegations that members of the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russians during the campaign at his confirmation hearing on Jan. 10, Sessions responded: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."
He later denied in a written statement to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-NH) that he “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after Election Day.”
“Well, the best I can tell, there’s no real revelation, which is interesting,” Blunt told reporters Thursday. “He was asked a question about whether he’d talked to the Russians about the campaign, and he said ‘no.’ As far as I know, that is the truth, and he says that’s the truth. And I think what he said this morning was that he’d recuse himself if at some point it became appropriate to do that, and I continue to think he’ll be the best judge of knowing when that moment is.”
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/blunt-no-real-revelation-russia-sessions
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GOP Sen. Has No Concerns 'At All' About Sessions' Statements Under Oath
By ESME CRIBB Published MARCH 2, 2017, 11:32 AM EDT
Alice Ollstein contributed reporting.
Sen. James Risch (R-ID) said on Thursday that he has no concerns "at all" that Attorney General Jeff Sessions could have misled or lied to a Senate committee during his confirmation hearing when he claimed that he did not have contact with Russia before the election.
Asked if he had concerns that Sessions misled the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January, Risch told TPM: "None at all."
"No, none at all. I'm on Foreign Relations and on Intelligence," he added, referring to the Senate committees. "In the last 24 months I've met with high-ranking officials from half the countries on the face of this earth. If you asked me which ones I did, I couldn't tell."
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/james-risch-no-concerns-at-all-sessions-claims-under-oath
McCaskill Calls For Attorney General Jeff Sessions To Resign
Source: Talking Points Memo
By MATT SHUHAM Published MARCH 2, 2017, 10:14 AM EDT
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) joined several other Democrats in calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions' resignation Thursday, after the Washington Post reported that Sessions met twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential campaign.
Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation process in January that he had not met with any Russian during the campaign, though his spokesperson told TPM Thursday that Sessions “met with the ambassador in an official capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is entirely consistent with his testimony.”
McCaskill called for Sessions to resign Thursday, saying in a statement published by NBC's Frank Thorp “it’s clear Attorney General Sessions misled the Senate–the question is, why? I’ve been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for 10 years, and in that time, have had no call from or meeting with, the Russian ambassador. Ever. That’s because ambassadors call members of the Foreign Relations Committee. Attorney General Sessions should resign.”
https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/837296802722430977
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mccaskill-sessions-should-resign
Cruz Calls Sessions' Meeting With Russian Ambassador A 'Nothing Burger'
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND Published MARCH 2, 2017, 9:33 AM EDT
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday called Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ two meetings with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign a “nothing burger,” breaking with several senior Republican leaders.
“What we are seeing is a lot of political theater,” Cruz said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The Texas senator said that Sessions’ meetings with ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which he did not disclose during his confirmation hearings and were first reported by the Washington Post Wednesday night, were a routine part of serving in Congress.
“This morning, everyone is in high dudgeon about the meeting,” Cruz said. “The underlying meeting is a nothing burger. It's what senators do every day. Meeting with foreign ambassadors, that's part of the job.”
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-sessions-meeting-russian-ambassador-nothing-burger
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