Fox News host Dana Perino predicted last night that Donald Trump will make Attorney General Jeff Sessions the new Department of Homeland Security secretary in order to put in a new attorney general who will fire Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.
Trump has been on a public warpath against Sessions of late, almost certainly because Trump wants an attorney general who will fire Mueller. But conservatives have sent strong warnings to Trump not to fire Sessions. Sessions has signaled he will not quit.
Meanwhile, Perino’s cohost Kimberly Guilfoyle happened to have dinner with Trump, Sean Hannity, former Fox News co-president Bill Shine and incoming White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci Wednesday night. We also know that Trump's “policies and agendas” were discussed at that dinner, according to Guilfoyle.
Guilfoyle also reportedly offered her opinion to her companions about Reince Priebus who was pushed out the next day.
So Perino’s prediction has even more weight beyond “merely” being a cohost on Trump’s favorite network and a former Republican operative.
Significantly, Perino’s comments came during a discussion of Priebus’ departure and his replacement by current DHS Secretary, John Kelly.
PERINO: I think what’s really interesting is what’s about to happen. I’m going to go out and say this: I think that this was all set up for a few weeks because the president has been so upset about Jeff Sessions and his recusal about, in the Russia investigation, that the Republicans and conservatives that came to Jeff Sessions’ defense this week all said, “But he’s doing the best on the issue we care about the most and that is immigration.”
Well, where can Jeff Sessions do even more on immigration? As the secretary of Homeland Security.
So I think that what they’re gonna try to do is move Sessions over to DHS and then how can the conservatives complain? And then you have a new AG, he thinks, who can then fire Mueller.
There were oohs and ahhs among the panel. It would have been most interesting to see Guilfoyle’s reaction but she was off last night.
But whether Trump would actually get away with such a maneuver is questionable. This morning, on MSNBC’s AM Joy, George W. Bush’s ethics czar, Richard Painter, knocked down the possibility as a blatant act of criminal obstruction of justice.
“I don’t think an Attorney General or an acting Attorney General is going to interfere with the Russia investigation and risk going to jail,” Painter predicted. “I don’t think he’s going to find somebody to do that job for him.”
“So getting rid of Jeff Sesssions and moving him over to Homeland Security and embarrassing him in front of the United State Senate where he have to go back for another confirmation would be a ludicrous move,” Painter concluded.
But Trump seems desperate to stop the Russia investigation...
Watch Perino below, from the July 28, 2017 The Five and Painter underneath, from the July 29, 2017 AM Joy, via Raw Story.
How about that Trump is just a bully with the intellect of a fifth-grader, and he doesn’t care how he comes across when he bullies someone? And how about that Jeff Sessions is happy enough bullying other people as AG that he’s willing to put up with it?
I have no tears to shed for Jeff Sessions. He was and is an extremely bigoted man. He continues to use his position in government to attack people of other ethnicities, simply because he thinks he can get away with it. Just because Donald Trump bullies him in public doesn’t make him any less despicable.
In case you forgot, Richardson was one of just two people to serve 4 cabinet positions (the other was George Schultz), and the only one to serve three different positions in one calendar year:
- HEW Sec. from 1970- January 30, 1973
- Defense Sec. from January to May 1973
- Attorney Gen. from May to October 1973
- Commerce Sec., 1976-77
As is the case with Drumpf, Nixon wanted Watergate SP Archibald Cox fired by the AGUSA; Richardson — who was on the job just five months — had promised Congress during his confirmation that he wouldn’t interfere with the SP; rather than break his promise or disobey Nixon, he quit.
Richardson’s #2 at Justice, William Ruckleshaus, also refused to fire Cox; he too resigned.
The #3 at Justice, Robert H. Bork, carried out the firing (no surprise), but planned on quitting afterward; Richardson talked him out of it.
The resignations of Richardson and Ruckleshaus, and the sacking of Cox, became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre”; the Watergate investigation, however, didn’t stop, of course.
Drumpf would do well to remember what happened the last time a sitting POTUS tried to shut down an active investigation by a Special Prosecutor — but, given Drumpf’s seemingly well-earned reputation for intellectually incurious, he won’t be familiar with the saying: “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
.