The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, June 15

Episode Date: June 15, 2017

The aftermath of Wednesday's shooting continues, and the President may be under investigation for obstruction of justice. This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Vanessa Romo, congressional reporter Geoff Bennett, and editor/correspondent Ron Elving. This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Geoff Bennett, and congressional correspondent Susan Davis. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, this is Allison and Matt from Chicago, Illinois, currently in Irkutsk, Russia, Novosibirsk, Russia, Yekaterinburg, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. This podcast was recorded at 625 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, June 13th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at NPR.org, on the NPR One app, and on your local public radio station. All right, here's the show.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast, here to talk about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who today was the latest player in the Russia-Trump drama to testify before a Senate or House committee. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. So two things before we get started. First of all, we had so much fun taping a congressional hearing reaction podcast last week, I figured we could just do it again. Maybe there'll be one every single week.

Well, we'll see at this point. That's about the pace we're on. Secondly, shout out to Allison and Matt for that very intricately recorded timestamp. But here in Washington, another week, another big day of testimony in Congress. Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Some key takeaways before we dig in. First of all, Sessions denied any additional meetings beyond the ones he's already disclosed with Russian officials to discuss the 2016 campaign. I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign

or election in the United States. Sessions also defended his recommendation to President Trump to fire James Comey. He says that did not conflict with his recusal from the Russia investigation. It is absurd, frankly, to suggest that a recusal from a single specific investigation would render the Attorney General unable to manage the leadership of the various Department of Justice law enforcement components that conduct thousands of investigations. And Sessions also confirmed that Comey did have that private conversation with President Trump in the Oval Office and did later express some concern to Sessions about that.

I affirmed his concern that we should be following the proper guidelines of the Department of Justice and basically backed him up in his concerns and that he should not carry on any conversation with the president or anyone else about an investigation in a way that was not proper. And that was kind of interesting because President Trump continues to deny that that conversation ever took place. Though Sessions did say later on that when Comey expressed concerns to him about it, Comey never got into the details

of what exactly it was about. Finally, Sessions repeatedly refused to answer questions about conversations with President Trump, citing the fact that the president might down the line in the future possibly exert executive privilege. What is the basis of your refusal to answer these questions? Trump, citing the fact that the president might down the line in the future possibly exert executive privilege.

What is the basis of your refusal to answer these questions? Angus King, the independent senator from Maine. Senator King, the president has a constitutional... I understand that, but the president hasn't asserted it. Well, I'll give... You said you don't have the power to assert the power of executive privilege, so what is the legal basis for your refusal to answer these questions? I am protecting the right of the president to assert it if he chooses, and there may be other privileges that could apply in this circumstance.

So I was confused by that. Before we get into the big picture takeaways from the hearing, Carrie, can you walk us through what exactly Sessions was claiming, how this all works? Well, Sessions was saying it's the president's privilege to bestow, and he hadn't decided, he the president, whether he wanted to assert executive privilege here. So Sessions didn't want to foreclose that option in the future. Now, Angus King, the senator from Maine, said, Jeff Sessions, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot come to this committee and defend yourself from innuendo and then blank out every time we ask you about conversations with Donald Trump that are central to this investigation. But in fact, Jeff Sessions did kind of have it both ways today. He also refused to commit to providing memos, calendar entries, notes, any other materials he may have created last year in the course of his meetings and connections with the Russian ambassador. You know, I thought this was pretty interesting.

At one point, he said, I'm not stonewalling. I am not stonewalling. I am following the historic policies of the Department of Justice. You don't walk into any hearing or committee meeting and reveal confidential communications with the president of the United States. He stonewalled really well. And he – first of all, he not only said that he wants to preserve this future potential privilege claim. He also said it's the DOJ policy not to discuss conversations with the president, which doesn't, I don't think, hold any legal weight. So the question is, this is similar to the intelligence officials who came last week and said they didn't want to discuss their conversations with the president, but they

would discuss them in closed session. He wasn't even offering to do that. Well, and let me point out that Chairman Richard Burr, the senator from North Carolina who runs the Intelligence Committee, said, by the way, NSA Director Michael Rogers was in closed session with us for two hours yesterday, former Senator Jeff Sessions. I think that may have been a signal that Jeff Sessions may be heading back to this committee in closed session. Right. But it's not like he offered to tell them this in closed session. But this is the question now before the committee. What do they want to do, if anything, to compel Jeff Sessions to answer their questions? So we could talk about the intricate ins and outs of what he said and didn't say for a while,

probably. But let's get back to the big picture thing, because there were three key questions going into this that senators wanted to know from Sessions. First of all, did he have any additional meetings with Russian officials beyond what he had said before? And remember, he got into trouble during his confirmation hearing by saying he had never met with Russian officials when, of course, that wasn't the case. So that was the first question. What did we learn on that front? Sessions said that he did attend a campaign event at the Mayflower Hotel last year. There were lots and lots of other people there. He did not remember having a meeting with the Russian ambassador there. I don't recall it, Senator Warner. It would have been, certainly, I can assure you, nothing improper if I'd had a conversation with him. And it's conceivable that

occurred. I just don't remember it. There was a reception. He had a congressional aide with him. And it's conceivable that occurred. I just don't remember it. There was a reception. He had a congressional aide with him the whole time. And that aide doesn't remember any such meeting either. And remember, Jeff Sessions got in trouble. You know, he started out with this big defense of himself that I've never colluded, I've never met with anyone and discussed the campaign. He got in trouble for not disclosing meetings with the Russians when asked. Now, what was amazing to me, it took almost the entire hearing before somebody said to him, John McCain, did you ever discuss policy with the Russian ambassador? Jeff Sessions would not be discussing interference in the campaign. He would be discussing foreign policy. He was the head of Trump's foreign policy team, task force, whatever it's called, advisory council.

And in fact, he said, yes, we did discuss Ukraine. I did, Senator McCain, and I would like to follow up a little bit on that. That's one of the meetings that I, that's one of the issues that I recall explicitly. The day before my meeting with the Russian ambassador, I'd met with a Ukrainian ambassador, and I heard his concerns about Russia. You're right, though, Mara. You said that the question was not, was Jeff Sessions deep into collusion with Russians, which is a question that, really sarcastically, Tom Cotton asked Sessions at one point. Do you like spy fiction?

John Le Carre, Daniel Silva, Jason Matthews? Yeah, Alan First, David Ignatius. Just finished Ignatius' book. Do you like Jason Bourne or James Bond movies? No. Yes. I do. Have you ever, in any of these fantastical situations,

heard of a plot line so ridiculous that a sitting United States senator and an ambassador of a foreign government colluded at an open setting with hundreds of other people. But the thing that's so interesting about these investigations is people do get distracted. Senators get distracted. They go down rabbit holes. Because that was a rabbit hole. Nobody's ever said that. Yes, this is a rabbit hole. Do we really think that Jeff Sessions coordinated with the Russians on hacking Hillary Clinton's emails? No, but if you're looking at the bigger

picture, what did the Russians want? Why did they want Trump versus Hillary? They wanted to get some change in policy, sanctions lifted for the invasion of Ukraine. That's what this was about. But it didn't seem to get focused on today in this hearing. Right, which is kind of an ongoing complaint at the end of each one of these hearings. Burr and Warner will say, by the way, we still have major concerns that we were massively hacked and that could happen again. We need to deal with that at some point. But, you know, each time other things get kind of put into the headlines. So big question number two was, why exactly did Jeff Sessions recuse himself from the Russia investigation? Because Jim Comey last week said some cryptic things, Carrie. Yeah, James Comey said he couldn't talk about it in open session, but the FBI was in possession of some facts that would have made it problematic for Jeff Sessions to oversee the investigation of Russia. What came out in reporting after the fact was this

allegation of a possible third meeting between Sessions and the Russian ambassador at the Mayflower, which Sessions denied. Now, Sessions, for CFR 45.2, I felt required it. That regulation states in effect that department employees should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they serve as a campaign advisor. But we should point out the public timeline of what happened when was that Sessions made that recusal announcement after it was reported that these meetings had taken place. But on that problematic point, Sessions addressed that early on. But later on in the hearing, Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, directly asked him about it.

And that produced one of the more forceful moments of the hearing. Mr. Comey said that there were matters with respect to the recusal that were problematic and he couldn't talk about them. What are they? Why don't you tell me? They are none, Senator Wyden. There are none. I can tell you that for absolute certainty. You tell, this is a secret innuendo being leaked out there about me, and I don't appreciate it, and I've tried to give my best and truthful answers to any committee I've appeared before, and it's really, people are suggesting through innuendo that I have been not honest about matters, and I've tried to be honest. And Sessions' recusal gets into the third big picture question that we had here today.

If you recused yourself from the Russia investigation, why did you play a big role in the decision to fire Jim Comey when Trump said he fired him because of that Russia investigation. What did Sessions say about that? What was so interesting about that is Sessions stuck to his guns on this. He said, the reason that I recommended or I forwarded the memo written up by Rod Rosenstein to fire Comey was because of his handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation. When Mr. Comey declined the Clinton prosecution, that was really a usurpation of the authority of the federal prosecutors in the Department of Justice. It was a stunning development.

The FBI is the investigative team. They don't decide prosecution policies. Now, that explanation was blown out of the water pretty quickly by President Trump, who said, no, it was Russia. I had Russia on my mind as I was firing Comey. And he had said repeatedly that it was a hoax and a witch hunt. But the reason that Sessions had to stick to that line of argument, that it was because of how he handled Hillary Clinton. So he could answer the question you just asked by saying, I was only recused from Russia. I wasn't recused from everything. And I was involved in Comey's firing, which, according to Sessions, did not have to do with Russia.

Sessions was saying the attorney general can't simply make no decisions on something as big a part of the DOJ as the FBI because of just one recusal. Yeah, he did say that. He said the FBI conducts thousands of investigations. This was just one, although perhaps the most politically sensitive on the FBI's docket. The attorney general, interestingly enough, in the past had actually praised the FBI director, James Comey. Yeah, specifically for what he did with the emails last year. In October, when Comey sent notice to Congress that he was reopening or taking a new look at the Clinton investigation, Jeff Sessions actually praised that idea at the time. FBI director Comey did the right thing. When he found new evidence, he had no

choice but to report to the American Congress where he had under oath testified the investigation was over. He had to correct that and say this investigation is ongoing now. And I'm sure it's significant or he wouldn't have announced that. So that was on Fox News. And this was really interesting to me. Sessions repeatedly said that he backed Rosenside's memo about how improper this was. Sessions had so clearly said this at repeated points last year, and yet it took until the very last Democrat on the panel, Jack Reed from Rhode Island, to directly ask and say, wait a second, here's what you said last year. Here's how Sessions responded. Once the director at our first got involved and embroiled in a public discussion of this investigation,

which would have been better never have been discussed publicly and and said he it was over. Then when he found new evidence that came up, I think he probably was required to tell Congress that it wasn't over, that new evidence had been developed. It probably would have been better and would have been consistent with the rules of the Department of Justice to never have talked about the investigation to begin with. Mara, one thing that stuck in my head today is so many of these big picture moments in the various Russia investigations have produced really damaging headlines for the Trump administration. That did not seem to be the case today. No, I think if you were thinking about the audience of one today and Jeff Sessions certainly had Donald Trump in mind, I think the audience of one was pretty happy. I mean, Jeff Sessions stuck to his guns.

He didn't talk about any conversations with Donald Trump. He didn't pass judgment on what FBI Director Comey says Donald Trump talked to him about. He at one point said when he was asked, well, did Comey discuss the inappropriateness of Donald Trump asking for a private meeting with him, shooing everybody out of the room? That in itself is not problematic. He did not tell me at that time any details about anything that was said that was improper. Session says, I didn't think that was problematic, and I thought that Comey could handle himself, basically. I felt he, so long in the department, former deputy attorney general, as I recall, knew those policies probably a good deal better than I did.

Kerry, you were saying before there were some signs that the Department of Justice put a lot of preparation into this? Yeah, we were getting, we on the DOJ beat reporter team were getting rapid response emails in some circumstances to Jeff Sessions' testimony and some of the questions and answers happening before the Senate Intelligence Committee. And I'd also point out that sitting in very prominent places in the audience were Jeff Sessions' chief of staff and a lawyer who's advised him in the past, a very prominent lawyer in Washington, Charles Cooper. So one thing that Sessions said today that I'm not sure what to make of because you can look at it two ways. And I'm curious what you guys both think. Sessions said that he has not up until this point gotten any substantial briefing or any real hard information on just how substantial the Russian efforts to meddle in the election were. After the

election, before the inauguration, you never sought any information about this rather dramatic attack on our country? No. You never asked for a briefing or attended a briefing or read the intelligence reports? You might have been very critical of me if I, as an active part of the campaign, was seeking intelligence relating to something that might be relevant to the campaign. I'm not sure that would have been— I'm not talking about the campaign. I'm talking about what the Russians did. You received no briefing on the Russian active measures in connection with the 2016 election.

No. I don't believe I ever did. On one hand, he recused himself from the investigation. On the other hand, he's a top law enforcement official, and this is a big problem. I mean, what do you make of him saying that? That doesn't strike me as significant as the fact that President Trump seems to be completely uninterested and unconcerned with what Russia might or might not have done to interfere with our elections. Right. He repeatedly calls it a hoax.

He repeatedly calls it a hoax. And according to James Comey's testimony, he never asked any questions about that. He seemed more intent on getting the cloud lifted, getting Flynn out from under the investigation. He doesn't seem to really consider it a big problem. But this committee does consider it to be a big problem, as they say over and over again, because they believe the Russians will be back. They believe the Russians are equal opportunity interferers. And last time they interfered on behalf of Donald Trump. Next time it might be on behalf of a Democrat. Yeah, absolutely. Interestingly enough, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who testified earlier today, said since being confirmed and sworn in, he had received an

intelligence briefing. He is confident in the conclusion among the 17 agencies in the intelligence community that Russia is responsible for interfering in hacking last year. Jeff Sessions asked a similar question today. Do you believe the Russians interfered with the 2016 elections? It appears so. The intelligence community seems to be united in that. But I have to tell you, Senator King, I know nothing but what I've read in the paper. I've never received any detailed briefing on how hacking occurred or how information was alleged to have been... In his view, to have taken a briefing on some of that interference may have gotten too close

to the edges of his recusal. Were there any other things that Sessions said or questions that Sessions was asked that gave you new information about this whole thing or raised additional questions in your mind about what could come next or what other questions have opened up? Sessions didn't say whether he ever discussed firing Comey in the context of the Russia investigation with Donald Trump. I really want to know about that. The administration's shifting explanations for why it fired the FBI director still don't add up. And I also want to know more. There was some question by one of the Democratic senators today about whether Sessions had ever discussed possible pardons for people with President Trump.

To your knowledge, have any Department of Justice officials been involved with conversations about any possibility of presidential pardons about any of the individuals involved with the Russia investigation? Mr. Chairman, I'm not able to comment on conversations with high officials within the White House. Whoa. We know that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who's under investigation and has sought immunity, apparently without success so far, you know, could be in some legal trouble. Is a pardon for Mike Flynn or anybody else on the table? That's an intriguing idea. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We're going

to come back and talk about a couple other things in the news the last few days. All right. We're back in one other piece of Justice Department Russia investigation related news. There was a flurry of reports starting Monday night that President Trump may be thinking about firing special counsel Robert Mueller, which he could do. It's complicated. We'll get into that. But the thing about this, this did not come from the White House press office. This did not come from a White House source. It came from friend of Trump, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who spent some time in the White House Monday and then said this to PBS NewsHour. Well, I think he's considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. I think he's weighing that option. I think it's pretty clear by what one of

his lawyers said on television recently. I personally think it would be a very significant mistake. Carrie, that would be quite the drastic move. Yeah, I don't think my heart rate has recovered from that idea last night. The White House went on to clarify that Chris Ruddy did not speak with the president about this and that Ruddy was speaking for himself. That said, there has been an ongoing campaign among some Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, to try to dirty up the special counsel, Robert Mueller. And today, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, said, only I can fire Robert Mueller. Only I can fire him for good cause. As of today, I've seen no such good cause. I don't expect this is going to happen.

The guy's going to be independent. He's going to get the resources he needs. And as long as I am in this job, Rod Rosenstein says, I can guarantee you all of those things. That matters because many, many decades ago in the Watergate scandal, President Nixon was trying to get the Justice Department to fire the independent counsel, the special prosecutor in that case. The attorney general and the deputy attorney general both refused and they quit or were fired. So what Rod Rosenstein was trying to signal was, as long as I'm in this job, that is not going to happen unless Robert Mueller gives me a good reason. And I don't think there's going to be a good reason. But the political shift has been really interesting because Bob Mueller gets appointed. He puts out what, like a two sentence statement and then goes to work. And we haven't seen any really public indications at all other than the people he's been hiring. And yet over that period, this narrative has begun that he is a partisan hack. He's too tight with Jim Comey. And I think the Newt Gingrich quote is the best example, because Gingrich praised him the day he was appointed, and now today is out saying this

guy needs to go. Well, I think that the anti-Mueller drumbeat was started, but I don't think it turned into a big symphony. You know, mostly you heard from Republicans saying Bob Mueller is a straight guy, and he's the best person to do this job. The only thing that Newt Gingrich offered was one, he's friends with Comey, and we know Comey wanted a special counsel. And two, he has somebody on his staff who once donated money to Democrats. Well, Donald Trump once donated money to Democrats, a lot of money. And Mueller was appointed by a Republican. Yeah. So that's something that the president could decide to do. As Kerry said, it would be very Nixonian, Saturday Night Massacre. He'd have to get rid of Rod Rosenstein. But even Chris Ruddy, who suggested it,

said he doesn't think it's a good idea. It could be a trial balloon, although I think sometimes attributing a carefully thought out strategy of trial balloons is the wrong interpretation of this White House. But they did float it it and it got a lot of pushback. Diane Feinstein, a senator from California, a Democrat, said firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be catastrophic. I think most people in establishment Washington and elsewhere would agree. All right. Next topic from this week, the attorneys general from Maryland and Washington, D.C., are suing President Trump for violating the emoluments clause. What's going on with this?

Yeah, this is part of the Constitution that says the president cannot be accepting money or gifts, emoluments from foreign governments, foreign heads of state. And the argument is that Maryland and Washington, D.C. have convention centers which are losing money because these foreign governments are booking out Trump hotels and resorts in the Washington area and elsewhere. And they're saying that alone gives them standing to sue in this case. They're also saying that they want to use this litigation as a vehicle to try to extract Donald Trump's financial records and his long-awaited tax returns. We'll see. And this is something we're probably going to hear about as the week goes on, because we've heard that a whole bunch of congressional Democrats are going to file an identical suit or a very similar suit later this week.

So one last thing, health care. Other things were happening today when Jeff Sessions was testifying down the street at the White House. President Trump was having lunch with about a dozen key Republican senators who are trying to come up with a Senate version of the health care bill. And there have been reports from the Associated Press and others that Trump said the House health care bill, the one that passed the House about a month ago, was, quote, mean. He wants the Senate version to be less mean. Generous, kind with heart. That's what I'm saying. And that may be adding additional money into it. I'm going to come out with a real bill, not Obamacare. He certainly can read the

polls, and he knows that the House bill is extremely unpopular, and it has made health care into a real problem for Republicans. How exactly he thinks it could be more generous in the Senate while still keeping conservatives from bailing and moderates on board is unclear. This was the problem they had in the House. In the Senate, they have it in a very similar manner. Mitch McConnell, the leader there, can only afford to lose three Republicans. And it's going to be tough. So it's unclear what Donald Trump means or wants to do or how deeply he'll get involved in the details, which usually isn't very.

Yeah. Finally, last point on this. Here is President Trump in the Rose Garden celebrating the success of that so-called mean bill. How am I doing? Am I doing okay? I'm president. Hey, I'm president.

Can you believe it, right? I don't know. I thought you needed a little bit more time. They always told me more time, but we didn't. But we have an amazing group of people standing behind me. They worked so hard, and they worked so long. And what I said, let's do this. Let's go out, just short little shots for each one of us, and let's say how good this plan is. We don't have to talk about this unbelievable victory. Wasn't it unbelievable? Finally, a context-free correction to last week's episode. Many listeners pointed this out, including Mike from Woodland Park, Colorado.

The moon actually is a satellite. Thank you. And we are going to wrap for a very important reason, and that reason is that it is Mara's birthday, and Mara has dinner reservations. As she deserves.

Thank you very much. All right. We will be back on Thursday. In the meantime, every morning, up first, check it out in your podcast feed. Ten minutes of news every morning. Usually one of us is on it. And you can in your podcast feed. Ten minutes of news every morning. Usually

one of us is on it. And you can support the podcast and support public radio by supporting your local public radio station. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Keri Johnson, the justice correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And birthday girl. Happy birthday. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.