{"id":78631,"date":"2017-07-24T08:41:36","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T12:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=78631"},"modified":"2017-07-24T08:42:18","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T12:42:18","slug":"trump-asserts-he-would-have-never-appointed-sessions-given-the-possibility-of-recusal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=78631","title":{"rendered":"Trump Asserts He Would Have Never Appointed Sessions Given the Possibility of Recusal"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn\u2019t Have Hired Sessions<\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>By PETER BAKER, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MAGGIE HABERMAN<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"nyt_video_player\" title=\"New York Times Video - Embed Player\" src=\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/video\/players\/offsite\/index.html?videoId=100000005285371\" width=\"480\" height=\"321\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"summary\">In edited audio excerpts from an interview with New York Times reporters, President Trump discussed Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump Jr., Robert S. Mueller III and the newly disclosed conversation he had with Vladimir V. Putin.<br \/>\n<span class=\"credit video-credit\"><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Publish Date<\/span>July 19, 2017.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit photo-credit\">Photo by Stephen Crowley\/The New York Times.<\/span><\/h5>\n<div class=\"story-body-supplemental\">\n<div class=\"story-body story-body-1\">\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"291\" data-total-count=\"291\">WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump said on Wednesday that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision \u201cvery unfair to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"64\" data-total-count=\"355\">[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-interview-transcript.html\">Read excerpts of The Times\u2019s interview with President Trump<\/a>.]<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"403\" data-total-count=\"758\">In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions\u2019s decision ultimately led to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/17\/us\/politics\/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html\">appointment of a special counsel<\/a>\u00a0that should not have happened. \u201cSessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,\u201d Mr. Trump said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"502\" data-total-count=\"1260\">In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the president also accused James B. Comey, the\u00a0<a class=\"meta-org\" title=\"More articles about the Federal Bureau of Investigation.\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/f\/federal_bureau_of_investigation\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\">F.B.I.<\/a>\u00a0director\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/09\/us\/politics\/james-comey-fired-fbi.html\">he fired in May<\/a>, of trying to leverage a dossier of compromising material to keep his job. Mr. Trump criticized both the acting F.B.I. director who has been filling in since Mr. Comey\u2019s dismissal and the deputy attorney general who recommended it. And he took on\u00a0<a class=\"meta-per\" title=\"More articles about Robert S. Mueller III.\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/people\/m\/robert_s_iii_mueller\/index.html?inline=nyt-per\">Robert S. Mueller III<\/a>, the special counsel now leading the investigation into Russian meddling in last year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"463\" data-total-count=\"1723\">Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller was running an office rife with conflicts of interest and warned investigators against delving into matters too far afield from Russia. Mr. Trump never said he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, nor would he outline circumstances under which he might do so. But he left open the possibility as he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political toll in the six months since he took office.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-1\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"293\" data-total-count=\"2016\">Asked if Mr. Mueller\u2019s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at his family\u2019s finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, \u201cI would say yes.\u201d He would not say what he would do about it. \u201cI think that\u2019s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story-body-supplemental\">\n<div class=\"story-body story-body-2\">\n<p id=\"story-continues-3\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"330\" data-total-count=\"2346\">While the interview touched on an array of issues, including health care, foreign affairs and politics, the investigation dominated the conversation. He said that as far as he knew, he was not under investigation himself, despite reports that Mr. Mueller is looking at whether the president obstructed justice by firing Mr. Comey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"136\" data-total-count=\"2482\">\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re under investigation,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not under investigation. For what? I didn\u2019t do anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"136\" data-total-count=\"2482\"><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">Describing a newly disclosed informal\u00a0<\/span><a style=\"font-size: 12px;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/18\/world\/europe\/trump-putin-undisclosed-meeting.html\">conversation he had with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">\u00a0during a dinner of world leaders in Germany this month, Mr. Trump said they talked for about 15 minutes, mostly about \u201cpleasantries.\u201d But Mr. Trump did say that they talked \u201cabout adoption.\u201d Mr. Putin\u00a0<\/span><a style=\"font-size: 12px;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/12\/28\/world\/europe\/putin-to-sign-ban-on-us-adoptions-of-russian-children.html\">banned American adoptions of Russian children<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">\u00a0in 2012 after the United States enacted sanctions on Russians accused of human rights abuses, an issue that remains a sore point in relations with Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"image\">\n<h5><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media-viewer-candidate\" src=\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2017\/07\/20\/us\/politics\/00dc-sessions-hfo\/merlin-to-scoop-123459320-852737-master675.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-mediaviewer-src=\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2017\/07\/20\/us\/politics\/00dc-sessions-hfo\/merlin-to-scoop-123459320-852737-superJumbo.jpg\" data-mediaviewer-caption=\"Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in June.\" data-mediaviewer-credit=\"Eric Thayer for The New York Times\" \/><span class=\"caption-text\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in June.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Credit<\/span>Eric Thayer for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"481\" data-total-count=\"3473\">Mr. Trump acknowledged that it was \u201cinteresting\u201d that adoptions came up since his son, Donald Trump Jr., said that was the topic of a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2017\/07\/18\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-jr-russia-meeting.html\">meeting he had with several Russians<\/a>\u00a0with ties to the Kremlin during last year\u2019s campaign. Even though emails show that the session had been set up to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/11\/us\/politics\/trump-russia-email-clinton.html\">pass along incriminating information about Hillary Clinton<\/a>, the president said he did not need such material from Russia about Mrs. Clinton last year because he already had more than enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"511\" data-total-count=\"3984\">The interview came as the White House was trying to regain momentum after the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/17\/us\/politics\/health-care-overhaul-collapses-as-two-republican-senators-defect.html\">collapse of health care legislation<\/a>\u00a0even while the president\u2019s son, son-in-law and former campaign chairman were being asked to talk with Senate investigators. Relaxed and engaged, the president sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, with only one aide, Hope Hicks, sitting in on the interview. The session was sandwiched between a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/19\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-obamacare-health-care-republicans-senators.html\">White House lunch with Republican senators<\/a>\u00a0and an event promoting \u201cMade in America\u201d week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"333\" data-total-count=\"4317\">Over the course of 50 minutes, the often-fiery Mr. Trump demonstrated his more amiable side,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-macron-holding-hands.html\">joking about holding hands<\/a>\u00a0with the president of France and musing about having a military parade down a main avenue in Washington. He took satisfaction that unemployment has fallen and stock markets have risen to record highs on his watch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"259\" data-total-count=\"4576\">At one point, his daughter Ivanka arrived at the doorway with her daughter, Arabella, who ran to her grandfather and gave him a kiss. He greeted the 6-year-old girl as \u201cbaby,\u201d then urged her to show the reporters her ability to speak Chinese. She obliged.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-4\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"377\" data-total-count=\"4953\">But Mr. Trump left little doubt during the interview that the Russia investigation remained a sore point. His pique at Mr. Sessions, in particular, seemed fresh even months after\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/02\/us\/politics\/jeff-sessions-russia-trump-investigation-democrats.html\">the attorney general\u2019s recusal<\/a>. Mr. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trump\u2019s candidacy and was rewarded with a key cabinet slot, but has been more distant from the president lately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"385\" data-total-count=\"5338\">\u201cJeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president,\u201d he added. \u201cHow do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, \u2018Thanks, Jeff, but I\u2019m not going to take you.\u2019 It\u2019s extremely unfair \u2014 and that\u2019s a mild word \u2014 to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"413\" data-total-count=\"5751\">Mr. Trump also faulted Mr. Sessions for his testimony during Senate confirmation hearings when Mr. Sessions said he had not had \u201ccommunications with the Russians\u201d even though he had met at least twice with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. \u201cJeff Sessions gave some bad answers,\u201d the president said. \u201cHe gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"62\" data-total-count=\"5813\">A spokesman for Mr. Sessions declined to comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"265\" data-total-count=\"6078\">The president added a new allegation against Mr. Comey, whose dismissal has become a central issue for critics who said it amounted to an attempt to obstruct the investigation into Russian meddling in the election and any possible collusion with Mr. Trump\u2019s team.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"what-trump-can-do-to-let-obamacare-fail\" class=\"interactive promo layout-large\"><figcaption class=\"interactive-caption\"><\/figcaption><div class=\"interactive-image-container\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"481\" data-total-count=\"6559\">Mr. Trump recalled that a little more than two weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Comey and other intelligence officials briefed him at Trump Tower on Russian meddling. Mr. Comey afterward pulled Mr. Trump aside and told him about a dossier that had been assembled by a former British spy filled with salacious allegations against the incoming president, including supposed sexual escapades in Moscow. The F.B.I. has not corroborated the most sensational assertions in the dossier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"318\" data-total-count=\"6877\">In the interview, Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. Comey told him about the dossier to implicitly make clear he had something to hold over the president. \u201cIn my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there,\u201d Mr. Trump said. As leverage? \u201cYeah, I think so,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cIn retrospect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"210\" data-total-count=\"7087\">The president dismissed the assertions in the dossier: \u201cWhen he brought it to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didn\u2019t think about any of it. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"43\" data-total-count=\"7130\">Mr. Comey declined to comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"547\" data-total-count=\"7677\">But Mr. Comey and other intelligence officials decided it was best for him to raise the subject with Mr. Trump alone because he was going to remain as F.B.I. director. Mr. Comey testified before Congress that he disclosed the details of the dossier to Mr. Trump because he thought that the news media would soon be publishing details from it and that Mr. Trump had a right to know what information was out there about him. A two-page summary about the dossier was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/10\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-russia-intelligence.html?_r=0\">widely reported<\/a>\u00a0the week before Mr. Trump\u2019s inauguration, including by The Times.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-5\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"414\" data-total-count=\"8091\">Mr. Trump rebutted Mr. Comey\u2019s claim that in a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/16\/us\/politics\/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html\">one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 14, the president asked him to end the investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Comey testified before Congress that Mr. Trump kicked the vice president, attorney general and several other senior administration officials out of the room before having the discussion with Mr. Comey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"198\" data-total-count=\"8289\">\u201cI don\u2019t remember even talking to him about any of this stuff,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cHe said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, O.K.?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"114\" data-total-count=\"8403\">He expressed no second thoughts about firing Mr. Comey, saying, \u201cI did a great thing for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"301\" data-total-count=\"8704\">Mr. Trump was also critical of Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, reprising some of his past complaints that lawyers in his office contributed money to Mrs. Clinton\u2019s campaign. He noted that he actually interviewed Mr. Mueller to replace Mr. Comey just before his appointment as special counsel.<\/p>\n<div id=\"newsletter-promo\" class=\"newsletter-signup\" data-newsletter-productcode=\"NN\" data-newsletter-producttitle=\"Morning Briefing\" aria-labeledby=\"newsletter-promo-heading\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"288\" data-total-count=\"8992\">\u201cHe was up here and he wanted the job,\u201d Mr. Trump said. After he was named special counsel, \u201cI said, \u2018What the hell is this all about?\u2019 Talk about conflicts. But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I haven\u2019t said, but I will at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"343\" data-total-count=\"9335\">The president also expressed discontent with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a former federal prosecutor from Baltimore. When Mr. Sessions recused himself, the president said he was irritated to learn where his deputy was from. \u201cThere are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any,\u201d he said of the predominantly Democratic city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"384\" data-total-count=\"9719\">He complained that Mr. Rosenstein had in effect been on both sides when it came to Mr. Comey. The deputy attorney general recommended Mr. Comey be fired but then appointed Mr. Mueller, who may be investigating whether the dismissal was an obstruction of justice. \u201cWell, that\u2019s a conflict of interest,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cDo you know how many conflicts of interests there are?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"238\" data-total-count=\"9957\">In an interview with Fox News before Mr. Trump\u2019s comments were published, Mr. Rosenstein said he was confident Mr. Mueller could avoid any conflict of interests. \u201cWe have a process with the department to take care of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-6\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"346\" data-total-count=\"10303\">As for Andrew G. McCabe, the acting F.B.I. director, the president suggested that he, too, had a conflict. Mr. McCabe\u2019s wife, Jill McCabe, received nearly $500,000 in 2015 during a losing campaign for the Virginia Senate from a political action committee affiliated with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is close friends with Hillary and Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"276\" data-total-count=\"10579\">In his first description of his dinnertime conversation with Mr. Putin at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Trump played down its significance. He said his wife, Melania, was seated next to Mr. Putin at the other end of a table filled with world leaders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"350\" data-total-count=\"10929\">\u201cThe meal was going toward dessert,\u201d he said. \u201cI went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"282\" data-total-count=\"11211\">He noted the adoption issue came up in the June 2016 meeting between his son and Russian visitors. \u201cI actually talked about Russian adoption with him,\u201d he said, meaning Mr. Putin. \u201cWhich is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don had in that meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"181\" data-total-count=\"11392\">But the president repeated that he did not know about his son\u2019s meeting at the time and added that he did not need the Russians to provide damaging information about Mrs. Clinton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"228\" data-total-count=\"11620\" data-node-uid=\"1\">\u201cThere wasn\u2019t much I could say about Hillary Clinton that was worse than what I was already saying,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless somebody said that she shot somebody in the back, there wasn\u2019t much I could add to my repertoire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-interview-sessions-russia.html\">http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-interview-sessions-russia.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn\u2019t Have Hired Sessions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}