Speaker 1: It was the first appearance of Jeff's Sessions before the
Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee since his confirmation as Attorney General, and
Speaker 1: yesterday was more memorable for the question Sessions refused to
Speaker 1: answer than for those he did, and for the contentious
Speaker 1: nature of the questioning. Here's Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Lahy
Speaker 1: asking Sessions about contacts with the Russian government during the
Speaker 1: presidential campaign, including the two lawyers discussing the legal implications
Speaker 1: of certain words. Is there a difference between responding no
Speaker 1: and I do not recall well that legally significant? Yes?
Speaker 1: Repeat the question again about emails since the campaign. If
Speaker 1: you discussed with any Russian connected official anything about emails,
Speaker 1: discuss with them, I don't recall. I haven't done any
Speaker 1: such thing. Sessions repeatedly denied any improper contacts with the
Speaker 1: Russian government during the presidential campaign. Joining us are Ryan Goodman,
Speaker 1: professor at n y U Law School, and Jeff Kramer,
Speaker 1: managing director at Berkeley Research Group and a former federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1: Ryan there were many long silences and hesitation in answering
Speaker 1: questions by Jeff Sessions. Could this be seen as a
Speaker 1: lawyer who was burned in his last appearance before this committee,
Speaker 1: and was being very very careful about everything he said.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. He had to be careful about
Speaker 1: each and every word because now everybody is picking apart
Speaker 1: each and every word that he says in response to
Speaker 1: these kinds of specific questions from Senator Leahy about Russian
Speaker 1: contexts and other things like that. So I think each
Speaker 1: time you could tell an important moments, he was pausing
Speaker 1: to think very clearly what his response needs to be. Jeff,
Speaker 1: amid all those pauses and thinking and carefulness, did we
Speaker 1: learn anything about the Russia investigation or the contacts between
Speaker 1: the between Trump officials in in in Russian officials at
Speaker 1: all during yesterday's testimony? No, I don't think so. There
Speaker 1: Not only weren't there any great revelations, I don't think
Speaker 1: there any revelations at all. It was just parsing words.
Speaker 1: The attorney general, former prosecutor in Alabama was very careful,
Speaker 1: as was just discussed, UH to to to parse his
Speaker 1: words and make sure he wouldn't set himself up for
Speaker 1: any sort of perjury trap later. But this was not
Speaker 1: necessarily a quest for new information. UH politics was certainly
Speaker 1: on display there. Ryan tell us what he said about
Speaker 1: the special counsels Robert Mueller's investigation, did he appear to
Speaker 1: give it his imprima tour, so to speak? Right? I
Speaker 1: think that he in the sensus thing clear of that.
Speaker 1: So in a way that Mueller can infect advance with
Speaker 1: the investigation, and I think would be politically unwise for
Speaker 1: him to do anything else. But Jeff, let me ask
Speaker 1: you that sort of the same question. So in Sessions
Speaker 1: was asked about Robert Mueller and whether he had confidence
Speaker 1: in him. His his answer was, I think he will
Speaker 1: produce the work in a way he thinks is correct,
Speaker 1: and history will judge. Um. Does that strike you as
Speaker 1: as as tepid of an endorsement as it strikes me.
Speaker 1: I'm laughing as you said that, Michael Um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine anything that would be more milk post um.
Speaker 1: And I think others and even on the Republican side,
Speaker 1: have have vouched for former Director Mueller as a man
Speaker 1: of integrity. But certainly the Attorney General left himself the
Speaker 1: whibble room. So if the report doesn't come out or
Speaker 1: an investigation doesn't come out as he thought fit, that
Speaker 1: history would would judge this. He wasn't even saying that
Speaker 1: Mueller was a was a good and honorable man. He
Speaker 1: wasn't even giving him that. So there was there was
Speaker 1: nothing from the Attorney General that was gracious at all
Speaker 1: in that answer. Ryan. There was a great deal of
Speaker 1: questioning about executive privilege because Sessions refused to answer any
Speaker 1: questions or discuss his conversations with President Trump, leading Democratic
Speaker 1: Senator Sheldon white House to ask him about a letter
Speaker 1: by President Reagan and the guidelines for executive privilege tell
Speaker 1: us about that. So the guidelines from the Reagan administration
Speaker 1: basically would require Sessions to give a commitment to the
Speaker 1: senator as to when he would come back with a
Speaker 1: determination from the president as to whether or not the
Speaker 1: president will will assert executive privilege. But you could say
Speaker 1: that the ball is really in Congress's court because they
Speaker 1: have not forced the issue. Um the way in which
Speaker 1: they would need to force the issue is either to
Speaker 1: subpoena Sessions rather than him appear willing fully and this
Speaker 1: kind of a setting, or for them to they could
Speaker 1: supposedly they could apparently jump over subpoena and just say
Speaker 1: we will hold you in contempt if you do not
Speaker 1: either answer our question or a executive privilege. So that's
Speaker 1: really the kind of lack of political will on the
Speaker 1: part of the Senate to assert its prerogative if they
Speaker 1: really want to get an answer to the question as
Speaker 1: to whether or not there is an assertion of the
Speaker 1: executive privilege, at least an answer to the very specific
Speaker 1: question of what they're after, which is to find out
Speaker 1: what Sessions knew about and consulted with the president about
Speaker 1: the firing of James Comy. Jeff. Given that the Democrats
Speaker 1: are in the majority, they may well want to do
Speaker 1: some of those things that Ryan was talking about, but
Speaker 1: but don't have the votes to do it. Um. Do
Speaker 1: they have any recourse here? They did send Sessions a
Speaker 1: letter before this this testimony is saying we expect you
Speaker 1: to either answer the questions or tell us that the
Speaker 1: president is invoking executive privilege, but they they he seemingly
Speaker 1: just ignored that letter he did. Um. And there's so
Speaker 1: there's not much teeth what the Democrats can do other
Speaker 1: than the court of public opinion. Um. And that changes
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis, depending what the emergency
Speaker 1: of the day is. So you know, there is not
Speaker 1: much they can do. They can send any letters they want,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General can ignore them or dance around the
Speaker 1: questions and just get through the testimony. We're talking about
Speaker 1: Jeff sessions first oversight hearing as Attorney General before the
Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Our guests are Ryan Goodman, a
Speaker 1: professor at n y U Law School, and Jeffrey Cramer,
Speaker 1: managing director at Berkeley Research Group and a former federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1: Jeff there was some questioning about Special Counsel Robert Muller.
Speaker 1: What did we learn? Um, Well, a lot of the
Speaker 1: questions pertain to just kind of looking into the into
Speaker 1: the future as to what might be the future, not
Speaker 1: only the investigation, but of Muller himself. So while the
Speaker 1: Attorney General has recused himself, it's up to the Dag
Speaker 1: the w Attorney General UH now technically to be in
Speaker 1: charge of Muller. And the questions pertained to how the
Speaker 1: president might uh dismiss Muller and what the process would
Speaker 1: be UH. There was no guarantees on the part of
Speaker 1: the Attorney General now that he's recused himself, which he
Speaker 1: read or it was a proper thing to do, which
Speaker 1: which I agree with, UM. But a lot of the
Speaker 1: democratic senators were concerned that the president may just started
Speaker 1: going through the Department of Justice and firing people until
Speaker 1: he finds someone willing to get rid of Robert Mueller.
Speaker 1: Ryan Jeff Sessions was asked whether Robert Mueller had requested
Speaker 1: an interview with him. UH. For first, I said I
Speaker 1: don't think so, and then eventually he said no. Does
Speaker 1: that tell us anything about the pace or what's going
Speaker 1: on with uh Mr Muller's investigation. Um, it's hard to
Speaker 1: read the tea leaves on that one. UM. There was
Speaker 1: a very strange pause in the part of the Attorney
Speaker 1: General and answer to the question from Senator Leahy is
Speaker 1: to whether or not he's been requested to interview with
Speaker 1: Mueller's team. UM. I think my best interpretation of that
Speaker 1: is just that Sessions hadn't been fully prepared to know
Speaker 1: how to answer that question whether he should confirm or
Speaker 1: not confirm, or deny or deny. UM. So the fact
Speaker 1: that he isn't or has not yet being interviewed by
Speaker 1: Mueller might at best be an indication as to where
Speaker 1: Mueller's thinking about going on the obstruction of justice inquiry.
Speaker 1: Because there's some question as to whether or not Sessions
Speaker 1: himself would be implicated in the obstruction of justice if
Speaker 1: he was involved in firing the firing of Jim Comey
Speaker 1: for the reason of interfering with the Russian investigation and
Speaker 1: uh Sessions defended the firing of James Comey and insisted
Speaker 1: that it stemmed from Comey's mishandling of the Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: email case. Did he make a good effort at that,
Speaker 1: Jeff um half hearted. He certainly told the company line
Speaker 1: with respect to the reason that Jim Comey was far
Speaker 1: The problem is the President has given different answers himself.
Speaker 1: The last thing the Attorney General was going to do
Speaker 1: was step outside the box. So he just told the
Speaker 1: line and said that Jim Comey was fired due to
Speaker 1: his mishandling. And in his opinion of the Clinton email
Speaker 1: over the President has on record saying that it pertained
Speaker 1: to at least the Russian investigation a little bit. So again,
Speaker 1: no new revelations there. He didn't get himself in any trouble,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't going to go outside what the President
Speaker 1: had initially said Ryan's. Sessions was asked several times whether
Speaker 1: before firing Jim call Me, whether President Trump had said
Speaker 1: it would quote lift the cloud of the Russia investigation,
Speaker 1: and the Attorney General said, I won't discuss those conversations.
Speaker 1: Some people have said, well, it would have been pretty
Speaker 1: easy for Jeff Sessions to say no, I didn't hear
Speaker 1: him say that. Um is it fair to to uh
Speaker 1: infer anything from the fact that he wouldn't wouldn't respond
Speaker 1: to that question? Um? I don't think it's fair and
Speaker 1: for anything, because if he answers just that one question,
Speaker 1: then in a sense he has waived or they have
Speaker 1: waived executive privilege. So why could he answer that one
Speaker 1: question and then not answer a series of others that
Speaker 1: would follow on it. So I think that was a
Speaker 1: problem for him, But I do I think he got
Speaker 1: himself in a little bit of trouble just in the
Speaker 1: atmospherics of the way he handled these questions. Uh So,
Speaker 1: something that kind of went viral and social media is
Speaker 1: the Q and A between Lindsey Graham and Sessions on
Speaker 1: this very question. And Lindsey Graham asks a very point
Speaker 1: in question, which is, if the rationale for firing Comie
Speaker 1: was his handling of the Clinton emails, why wouldn't the
Speaker 1: president have known that on day one? Since that was
Speaker 1: so that was last year, and why would it take
Speaker 1: until May ninth to make that kind of a determination.
Speaker 1: And then there's a very long, uncomfortable pause on the
Speaker 1: part of the Attorney General not knowing really how to
Speaker 1: respond to that. I think that hurt him. I think,
Speaker 1: at least in the court of public opinion, uh to
Speaker 1: understand like, is that a real plausible explanation that he's given. Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't come out right for him. I didn't think Jeff,
Speaker 1: and we have about thirty seconds here in any other
Speaker 1: areas that he was asked questions in, for example, gay rights,
Speaker 1: Um did was there anything revealing that he said that
Speaker 1: that changed our opinion of what he's been doing? No,
Speaker 1: not at all. I think while there's been some confusion
Speaker 1: by the White Houses to where they stand on their issues,
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice has been pretty clear. They're locking
Speaker 1: up illegal aliens, they want to set up more federal prisons,
Speaker 1: they're cracking down on drugs, They're giving local prosecutors les leeway.
Speaker 1: They have been very linear as to what and what
Speaker 1: they're doing at the Department of Justice. Uh. So, I
Speaker 1: think that's a problem for a lot of people who
Speaker 1: we are dialing back least to my opinion, to how
Speaker 1: we tackle these problems in the nineties. I want to
Speaker 1: thank both of you for being on Bloomberg Law. That's
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Kramer, Managing director at Berkeley Research Group and Ryan Goodman,
Speaker 1: professor at m y U Law School, coming up on
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