Speaker 1: With that, I'm out a great love Yuh. Attorney General
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions got a little bit of security today, some
Speaker 1: reassurances in fact, at least for now. Larry Liebert is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News National Security editor. He's got more on his
Speaker 1: story out at Bloomberg News that is among actually the
Speaker 1: top stories on the government menu today here on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Larry joins U from our Bloomberg nine and nine
Speaker 1: one studio in the nation's capital. Larry, nice to have
Speaker 1: you here with us. So what exactly, um did Secretary
Speaker 1: Attorney General Jeff Session get in terms of reassurance. Well,
Speaker 1: nothing is forever to Washington and probably certainly not in
Speaker 1: this administration. But a new chief of Staff, John Kelly
Speaker 1: called him over the weekend and said, you're not going
Speaker 1: to be fired. All those mean tweets from the President
Speaker 1: about your recusing yourself for the Russia investigation, about not
Speaker 1: cracking down on lease, put those aside because we want
Speaker 1: you to stay. And uh. You know, it's unusual when
Speaker 1: it's big news that the Attorney general isn't being fired,
Speaker 1: but he's been left hanging and uh, and Kelly clearly
Speaker 1: is moving to try to uh tamp down some of
Speaker 1: these fires that have been set by the president. You know,
Speaker 1: interesting for Sessions certainly, but I also feel like this
Speaker 1: is a big story about John Kelly. Right, We're all
Speaker 1: watching him very closely to see is he truly the
Speaker 1: chief of staff? Does everything really go through him? Does
Speaker 1: the President listen to him and his advice? Well, he's
Speaker 1: moving clearly in that direction. It's called the Sessions is
Speaker 1: one indication the fact that uh Scaramucci was out uh
Speaker 1: profanity at all as soon as uh Kelly was in uh.
Speaker 1: And there's other indications on the National Security Council staff
Speaker 1: and others. There have been some changes that have long
Speaker 1: been held up that suggests so far that Kelly is
Speaker 1: in charge. But the question at all points is, uh,
Speaker 1: he's in charge of the staff, but the President's in
Speaker 1: charge of him in the White House. And will the
Speaker 1: President continue to back him up? We'll see that you
Speaker 1: mentioned the National Security Council, just just talk to us
Speaker 1: about yesterday. We did get um uh some news to
Speaker 1: about one staff member UM I think being let go. Well,
Speaker 1: Ezra Cohen Watnick, who was a staffer who was brought
Speaker 1: in by General Flynn, who was ousted very early on.
Speaker 1: But he had his own conservative constituency including admirers and
Speaker 1: the White House, reportedly Jared Kushner among them, and uh
Speaker 1: and uh, there was not success. General McMaster, the head
Speaker 1: of the National Security Council after Flynn, was allowed to
Speaker 1: move a lot of people around, to push a lot
Speaker 1: of people out, but this guy was sort of held sacrosanct.
Speaker 1: And so again it was taken as a symbol that
Speaker 1: Kelly is settling all these disputes that he can. We'll
Speaker 1: see if they stay s all right. So to White
Speaker 1: House Chief of Stuff, John Kelly in charge. So we're
Speaker 1: seeing that, you know, going back to Jeff Sessions for
Speaker 1: a moment. It's kind of interesting because there's been several
Speaker 1: stories um Ton, Schoenberger and Bloomberg Business. We put out
Speaker 1: a story at the end of June about how um
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions is actually dismantling President Obama's legal legacy. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that why while President President Trump has been
Speaker 1: critical of Jeff's Sessions, although maybe backing off for the moment,
Speaker 1: at the same time, the Attorney General has been going
Speaker 1: about kind of in the background, doing things that the
Speaker 1: president wants done. One of the ironies is the president
Speaker 1: was angry that Session recused himself. Sessions recused himself from
Speaker 1: all the Russia probe stuff. But in fact, it's given
Speaker 1: him lots more time to concentrate on the hard h
Speaker 1: conservative agenda that he would bring to the Justice Department,
Speaker 1: uh in any case, and that is in tune with
Speaker 1: the president. So H he's he's on the case. He's
Speaker 1: doing it with more assurance now. In fact, tomorrow he's
Speaker 1: holding a press conference he'd already planned to about crackdown
Speaker 1: on leaks from the intelligence agencies. And that's another of
Speaker 1: the President's pre occupations. That's interesting to that press conference
Speaker 1: because I know, I feel like, um, Jeff Sessions has
Speaker 1: been somewhat quiet. He did make some comments that almost
Speaker 1: made you feel kind of bad bad for him when
Speaker 1: he said when he was asked about, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the criticisms from President Trump, uh, and he talked
Speaker 1: about how it was hurtful. He say, it's kind of
Speaker 1: hurtfully said, and yeah, that was to say. And yet
Speaker 1: he also said at that time that he was going
Speaker 1: to be doing something to crackdown on leak leaks. Are
Speaker 1: christ Strong reports that this will be an announcement along
Speaker 1: with Director of National Intelligence coach tomorrow of of an
Speaker 1: effort to crack down on leaks with within the intelligence agencies,
Speaker 1: but on any specific prosecution or new case, but a
Speaker 1: general move to pick up the pace on on leaks.
Speaker 1: And that's something the president feel strongly about. The press
Speaker 1: conference to are by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. What what
Speaker 1: are we anticipating from him? Well, again, Uh, they want
Speaker 1: more internal efforts in the FBI and the Justice Department
Speaker 1: and the intelligence agencies to crack down, and they also
Speaker 1: want to be more aggressive on prosecutions. Uh. Now, again,
Speaker 1: one of the mysteries of this is the president's uh
Speaker 1: preoccupation with leaks. In many cases, not all has to
Speaker 1: do with leaks about the Russian Russia investigation, and Sessions
Speaker 1: has recused himself from that, so presumably he won't be
Speaker 1: involved in prosecuting leaks from that investigation either. But generally speaking,
Speaker 1: he's going to try to show that he's on the
Speaker 1: same wavelength as a president in UH in trying to
Speaker 1: move against leaks of government information. Yeah. Well, fascinating to
Speaker 1: see and maybe, you know, things are coming down a
Speaker 1: little bit so that the administration can kind of move forward.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll see Larry, Thank you so much. Appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. Lar Libert he is our National Security Team
Speaker 1: editor here at Bloomberg News, joining us from our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: ninety n one studio in the nation's capital. You can
Speaker 1: check out more of Larry stories and other stories UH
Speaker 1: dealing with the government. Just go to Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Corey Johnson, my co host, is off today.
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