Fake News: Media, Democrats Distort Remarks to Target Jeff Sessions

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ke-news-washington-post-misquote-used-target/

JOEL B. POLLAK 1 Mar 2017

Democrats and the media are once again targeting Attorney General Jeff Sessions — this time, over allegations that he met twice with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Washington Post reports that Sessions met Sergey Kislyak once at a Heritage Foundation event in July 2016, where other ambassadors were also present. It also reports that Sessions met with Kislyak in his Senate office in September, in his capacity on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The hook on which the Post attempts to hang Sessions is that he did not disclose the meetings to the Senate when he was asked about “possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow.” Sessions’s spokesperson at the Department of Justice, Sarah Isgur Flores, says his answer in January was truthful because he was asked about “the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee.”

The Post does not provide the full transcript of the question, from Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), and Sessions’s answer. Instead it summarizes the exchange in a way that makes it seem that Sessions was asked if there was any contact at all between the campaign and representatives of the Russian government.

In fact, what Sessions was asked about was sustained, ongoing communications — a core accusation in the dubious “dossier.”

Here, via C-SPAN, is the transcript:

Franken: CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week, that included information that “Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.” These documents also allegedly say “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” Again, I’m telling you this as it’s coming out, so you know. But if it’s true, it’s obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

Sessions: Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.

Franken: Very well.​

Note that Sessions was not actually asked whether he or anyone affiliated with the campaign had any kind of communication with the Russians, ever. He was asked, first, about “a continuing exchange of information” — repeated contacts between the campaign and representatives of the Russian government.

In the full context of Franken’s remarks, it is clear that Sessions was asked about the allegations in the dossier, and he denied such “communications” to the extent of his ability to do so.

In another, written question, the Post notes that Sessions was asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) whether he had “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day” (emphasis added). Sessions answered, simply, “no.” And there is no evidence in the Post nor elsewhere to cast doubt on that claim.

The New York Times covers the story and adds an interesting wrinkle — namely, that Obama administration officials did whatever they could to distribute information within the government about alleged contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries. (The Times calls this an attempt to “preserve” evidence, which would have been a departure from the Obama administration’s more typical practice of hiding evidence on personal email accounts and hidden email servers.)

That suggests a coordinated hit job, including espionage against the Russian ambassador, and possibly against members of the Trump campaign, even in their unrelated activities.

Regardless, as Flores noted to the Post, Sessions had meetings with “more than 25” ambassadors. The Post lists several of those, but leaves out one crucial country: Ukraine, whose emissary Sessions met the day before meeting with Kislyak. If Sessions was trying to back the Russians, that was an odd way to do it.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is calling on Sessions to resign, and the Democratic National Committee is already out with a list-building email, sent Wednesday evening: “BREAKING: Jeff Sessions may have perjured himself.”

But it is all just more “fake news.” A chance greeting at a public event, and a Senate meeting in the course of his official duties, do not add up to anything, and the full transcript — also omitted by the Times — makes it clear Sessions told the truth.
 

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...holds-protest-demanding-sessions-resignation/

Right On Cue, Soros-Financed MoveOn.Org Holds DC Protest Demanding Sessions’ Resignation

AARON KLEIN 2 Mar 2017

Right on cue, the George Soros-financed MoveOn.org progressive activist group on Thursday organized a protest outside the U.S. Department of Justice building calling for the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The protest was organized fairly quickly. It was held mere hours after reports surfaced that Sessions held two conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. while he was Alabama’s senator and served on the Armed Services Committee. Sessions maintains that the conversations did not concern the 2016 presidential campaign. He served as an informal advisor to Trump during the presidential race.

#SessionsMustGo pic.twitter.com/EUBGahDhH3

— MoveOn.org (@MoveOn) March 2, 2017​

Mother Jones reported the crowd at the MoveOn.org protest was about 100. ABC’s Local affiliate in Washington, DC reported “hundreds” attended.

Among the speakers was Rep. Sheila Jackson (D-TX), who proclaimed, “False testimony counters any right you have to remain Attorney General of the United States of America.”

The industrious MoveOn.org also organized an online petition titled, “Sessions must go; special prosecutor must be appointed now.”

The petition, already signed by 158,000 people, states:

The only way for Americans to be able to trust that our government can act with integrity — to know that our top leaders aren’t compromised by a foreign power, and to trust that the nation’s top cop follows the law that he is duty-bound to enforce — is for Attorney General Sessions to resign his post immediately and for his successor to appoint a special prosecutor to begin a comprehensive investigation of Donald Trump, his campaign, and his administration.​

Today’s anti-Sessions protest marks the latest attempt by Soros-linked groups to impede Trump administration policies or target top administration officials.

Earlier this week, Breitbart News reported two Soros-financed groups distributed an actual script with anti-Trump talking points for citizens to use when meeting with constituents in town halls, including during last week’s Congressional recess.

One of those groups, the National Immigration Law Center, was party to a lawsuit last month with three other Soros-financed organizations that temporarily blocked Trump’s original executive order.

A coalition of activist groups is planning to hold a massive anti-Trump Tax March in Washington and at least 60 other locations on April 15. Breitbart News reported last month that most of the listed partners and support organizers of the scheduled march are openly financed by Soros or have close links to Soros financing.

Leaders from January’s Women’s March coalition are reportedly helping to organize the Tax March, which USA Today described as a “sequel” to the massive women’s march.

Soros reportedly has ties to more than 50 “partners” of that march. Also, this journalist first reported on the march leaders’ close associations with Soros.

On Thursday, Sessions announced that he will recuse himself from current or future probes into any alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said at a press conference on Thursday.

“My reply to the question of Senator Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time,” he said. “I appreciate that some have taken the view that this was a false comment. That is not my intent. That is not correct.”

According to reports, Sessions met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a Heritage Foundation event in July 2016 in the presence of other ambassadors. He reportedly held a meeting with Kislyak in his Senate office in September.

The controversy has surrounded the following statements from his confirmation hearing:

Franken: CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week, that included information that “Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.” These documents also allegedly say “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” Again, I’m telling you this as it’s coming out, so you know. But if it’s true, it’s obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

Sessions: Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.

Franken: Very well.​

White House Spokesperson Sean Spencer explained that Sessions was “literally conducting himself as United States senator” when Sessions spoke with the Russian ambassador. “This is what senators do.”
 

bw

Fringe Ranger
Sessions is a threat; he's too honest for the deep state to tolerate.
 

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...reporter-democrats-overplaying-hand-sessions/

Washington Post Reporter: Democrats ‘Are Overplaying Their Hand’ on Sessions

KATIE MCHUGH 2 Mar 2017


Democrats trying to sustain a controversy around U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 election are overplaying their hand, a Washington Post reporter said Thursday.
Philip Bump wrote a timeline on Sessions’ interactions with the Russian ambassador:


Put together a timeline on what Sessions did and said, and am now thinking that Dems are overplaying their hand. https://t.co/qSyBftV9Lf

— Philip Bump (@pbump) March 2, 2017​

Sessions met Kislyak and dozens of other ambassadors during a Heritage Foundation event in July 2016. He also had a conversation with Kislyak in his Senate office while serving on the Armed Services Committee in September. In an initial report, the Washington Post darkly intoned their meeting took place “at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race,” insinuating that merely communicating with one nation’s ambassador means one is involved in a conspiracy.

Democrats also tried to paint a picture of a vast conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during Sessions’ confirmation hearings. An extremely questionable intelligence community dossier allegedly showed “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government,” Minnesota Sen. Al Franken told Sessions, asking “if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”

Sessions said he was “not aware” of ongoing communications between Russia-linked actors. “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it,” he said.

When the Washington Post revealed that Sessions had met with Kislyak on two occasions, Democrats began calling for his resignation. Sessions may have “committed perjury” and even poses a threat to national security, as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Wednesday night. “After lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the Attorney General must resign,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also demanded Sessions’ resignation.

Democrats, reeling from their electoral losses, want to use a Trump-Russia controversy to demand investigations into Russia’s so-called “role” in the 2016 election that will force out critical allies of Trump out of Washington, D.C. and possibly target Trump himself for impeachment.

The Washington Post‘s chronicle of Sessions’ interactions with Russian officials and the Trump campaign can be read here.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...about-russia-and-when/?utm_term=.dab1aecb62b4
 

Be Well

may all be well
Sessions is a threat; he's too honest for the deep state to tolerate.

When even a Washington comPost writer thinks the Dem(on)s are overplaying their hand, you know they're seriously off the deep end into psychosis.
 
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