This week we are reminded of that old political axiom– “I can handle my enemies, but please, God, protect me from my friends.”
A handful of Republicans in Congress joined the concerted attack by Democrat leaders in criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not answering a question that was never asked in his confirmation hearing.
As part of his confirmation hearing in a Senate committee, Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken about meetings with “foreigners” while serving as a surrogate for candidate Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Sessions replied that he had no such meetings while assisting the Trump campaign.
The Washington Post summarized the confirmation hearing encounter this way in its March 1 story:
At his Jan. 10 Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign.
“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” he responded. He added: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”
Later, after the Senate committee hearing, a member of the committee, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), asked Sessions for answers to written questions. One question was this one: “Several of the President-elect’s nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?” Leahy wrote. Sessions responded with one word: “No.”
The important thing here is that both answers were truthful: Sessions answered the questions that were asked, not questions that were not asked. Leahy asked about conversations “about the 2016 election.” Sessions replied that, no, he had no such conversations with Russian officials. Senator Sessions’ meeting with the Russian Ambassador in his Senate office had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign and was not unlike meetings held with the Russian Ambassador by many Democrat senators during the year.
Oh, and by the way, President Obama met with the Russian Ambassador in the White House 22 times during his presidency.
But truthful answers by Sen. Sessions are not good enough for Senate and House Democrats– and not good enough for a small handful of House Republicans like Colorado’s Mike Coffman. Those Republican members of Congress should be ashamed, and their constituents back home should be planning their 2018 replacements.
Congressman Coffman distanced himself from candidate Trump in the last days of the 2016 campaign, and his criticism of Trump’s Attorney General this week fits a pattern of self-serving comments critical of Trump, his appointees, and his policies.
- Coffman went further than a mild rebuke of Sessions. He told a CBS news reporter in Denver that Sen. Sessions “made a grave omission” in his Senate testimony by not volunteering information about his meeting in his Senate office with the Russian Ambassador.
- Coffman then went even further in this statement: “I would encourage him to fully disclose any and all foreign contacts he had during the course of the campaign.”
This latter statement basically calls Attorney General a liar by suggesting he is hiding something.
This attack by innuendo is unforgivable for a Republican congressman because it straight out of the Democrats’ anti-Trump playbook aimed at promoting the Big Lie that the Russians, not the American people, elected Trump.
Such slander-by-innuendo is part of the Soros-funded “Deep State” strategy to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election results. It is quite a stretch in both fact and logic to suggest that any conversation with any Russian official, including the Russian Ambassador, during calendar year 2016 must have been part of a conspiracy to control the outcome of the election– a conspiracy for which no evidence whatsoever exists!
And yet, despite the obvious partisan motivations behind this slanderous campaign against the President, we see some Republican members of Congress Like Coffman supporting that Soros game plan through cheap shots to generate self-serving media coverage.
The mainstream media is engaged in a witch hunt that makes the Salem witch trials of the 17th Century look like a Disneyland vacation. And yet, despite the ferocity of the campaign, they have yet to discover even one scintilla of evidence for any Trump campaign collusion with Russian hackers or Russian operatives.
They won’t ever discover any evidence for one simple reason: it never happened. It is a fictional story invented to explain how virtuous Princess Hillary lost the election to a man beloved only by the “deplorables.”
We can expect this kind of frenzied with hunt from leftist mobs and progressive politicians who have suddenly lost control of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. What we should not expect– and should not tolerate– is traitorous collusion with the lynch mob by Republicans — whether they come from Red states, blue states or purple states.
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