Posted on July 26, 2017

Jeff Sessions: A Man Who Embodies the Movement That Elected Donald Trump President

Matt Boyle, Breitbart, July 25, 2017

Sessions and Trump

February 28, 2016 – Madison, Alabama – Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., left, endorses Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee for president during a campaign rally. (Credit Image: © Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/NC via ZUMA Press)

Tensions are high right now between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Donald Trump.

Trump is upset about how Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation and did not tell him he would before he took office. Trump has a legitimate grievance there — there is literally no way that Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch would have recused themselves in a similar spot during their tenures as now former President Barack Obama’s attorneys general. Nonetheless, Trump has yet to directly call on Sessions to resign, and has not fired him — despite constant griping from the opposition party media pushing for that next soundbite for him to do so and to keep the story alive.

That all being said, Sessions is a critical part of the Trump administration — and before there was a Trump administration, Sessions was a critical part of the “movement” that elected Trump to the presidency. Losing Sessions could endanger the administration and the split the critical coalition that helped Trump to the presidency. Doing that is something Trump supporters nationwide do not want to see — and in fact, with all the reports of Trump being upset after he fired Gen. Mike Flynn earlier this year, it might be wise for the president to slow down and think about this one before he fires away too harshly and quickly.

Getting someone through Senate confirmation who agrees with Trump on anything to be the next Attorney General will be next to impossible at this juncture, at least before the midterms. There are only 52 Republicans and there is basically no way that any Democrat is going to vote for a cloture for a new Justice chief at this stage of the game. But even if they would, why turn on Sessions? It doesn’t make much sense politically to turn on the guy who burned his own bridges to help win the presidency.

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The new book Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency also includes critical details about how Sessions knew that endorsing Trump was a critical moment in his career. If he failed to succeed in getting Trump not only the nomination but into the Oval Office past Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the November 2016 general election, he would not have a future at all in GOP politics. Sessions bet it all on Trump, and they won.

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Sessions emerged to back up Trump publicly with an endorsement on Sunday, Feb. 28. That was before the critical SEC primaries, where Ted Cruz was attempting to sweep the South. The political class and professional GOP operatives from Washington, DC, were pushing people toward Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as well as Ohio Gov. John Kasich — basically an “anybody but Trump” approach that would become the ever-lingering “Never Trump” operatives — ahead of those critical contests.

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The hate Sessions endured from even one-time allies for breaking ranks with national Republicans to back Trump for president was immense, surpassed only by the hate Trump himself and his family have been subjected to. For instance, Sessions was called a “prostitute” by National Review — a conservative magazine — for endorsing Trump. That was hardly the worst, but it stung. Sessions stood by Trump through it all.

Sessions also helped Trump solidify the nationalist populist ideology that formed the basis for the building of the movement of hardworking Americans nationwide who turned out to vote for Trump. A deeply studied Senator on the issues of trade and immigration policy, as well as economic nationalism and American sovereignty, Sessions helped Trump message these ideas. Sessions’ right hand messaging guru, Stephen Miller, actually joined Trump’s campaign long before Sessions himself did — helping the president with his speeches and delivering policy backbones of his campaign all the way through November. Miller has now joined the White House in a senior position backing up Trump in a similar capacity to what he did during the campaign.

What is perhaps most sad about this whole episode is how much the opposition party — the fake news media — loves the Trump versus Sessions infighting. No fewer than a dozen national media outlets–all of whom hate Trump and Sessions–have begged me to come on their shows to try to drive divisions between the White House and the Justice Department. (I don’t go on fake news outlets). They are stoking the flames with the hopes of crushing the movement Trump and Sessions built together along with many other influential leaders, hunting for a scalp.

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