Epstein Secrets

HT_020046 As it happened, the Justice Department—Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—were,

on about Kushner’s meeting with Kislyak. OOK Ok Few jobs in the Trump administration seemed so right, fitting, and even destined to their holder as Jeff Sessions’s appointment as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. As he viewed his work as AG, it was his mandate to curb, circumscribe, and undo the interpre

president was shown the story, he didn’t see its significance. “So what?” he said. Well, during his confirmation, it was explained to the president, Sessions had said he HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019996 didn’t. Facing Sessions at the January 10 hearing, Al Franken, the former comedian and Democratic senator from

was often blamed on lower minions and permanent executive branch staff, culminating in late February with an all-hands meeting of staffers called by Sean Spicer—cell phones surrendered at the door—during which the press secretary issued threats of random phone checks and admonitions about the use of encrypted

taff. Bannon was disloyal (not to mention he always looks like shit). Priebus was weak (not to mention he was short—a midget). Kushner was a suck-up. Spicer was stupid (and looks terrible too). Conway was a crybaby. Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington. His callers, largely because they

and the stage in his own house. He regularly berated Spicer for his ham-handed performances, often giving his full attention to them. His response to Spicer’s briefings was part of his continuing belief that nobody could work the media like he could, that somehow he had been stuck with an F-Troop communic

he EO envelope. Now, in something of a zero-sum game, Trump’s EOs would undo Obama’s EOs. During the transition, Bannon and Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide who had earlier joined the Trump campaign and then become Bannon’s effective assistant and researcher, assembled a list of more than two hundred

id Walsh. Bannon got Stephen Miller to write the immigration EO. Miller, a fifty-five-year-old trapped in a thirty-two-year-old’s body, was a former Jeff Sessions staffer brought on to the Trump campaign for his political experience. Except, other than being a dedicated far- right conservative, it was unclear w

ress secretary, Sean Spicer— whose personal mantra would shortly become “You can’t make this shit up’—to argue his case in a media moment that turned Spicer, quite a buttoned-down political professional, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019919 into a national joke, which he seemed destined to never recover from. To boot

l they couldn’t control: the Republican National Committee, which was run by Priebus, his sidekick, thirty-two-year-old Katie Walsh, and their flack, Sean Spicer. Instead of being all in, the RNC, ultimately the tool of the Republican establishment, had been hedging its bets ever since Trump won the nomination

political professional, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019919 into a national joke, which he seemed destined to never recover from. To boot, the president blamed Spicer for not making the million phantom souls seem real. It was the first presidential instance of what the campaign regulars had learned over many month

focusing the blame for the Comey-Mueller mess on Sessions, even more forcefully belittling and threatening

going to do? Am I going to go in and save him? He’s Donald Trump. He’s always gonna do things. He wants an unrecused attorney general. I told him if Jeff Sessions goes, Rod Rosenstein goes, and then Rachel Brand’—the associate attorney general, next in line after Rosenstein—“goes, we’ll be digging down into Oba

nal into a joke figure standing at the White House door. In his daily out-of-body experience, as a witness to his own humiliation and loss for words, Spicer understood after a while—although he began to understand this beginning his first day on the job when dealing with the dispute about the inaugural au

he also wanted it because again and again the response surprised him—and, as though every time was the first time, he could not modify his behavior. Sean Spicer caught the brunt of the daily drama, turning this otherwise reasonable, mild-mannered, process-oriented professional into a joke figure standing at t

e House—Jared, Ivanka, Hope Hicks, and an increasingly ambivalent Dina Powell and Gary Cohn on one side, and almost everyone else, including Priebus, Spicer, Conway, and most clearly Bannon, on the other—were most distinguished by their culpability in or distance from the Comey-Mueller calamity. It was, a

under benign neglect under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, especially immigration as more people will face

nd this White House lie all the time. It's what they do. But it's the scope of deception on Russia that is so striking. Mike Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner have all lied about their contacts with Russian officials — and repeatedly so. The White House a

a claim that was easily disproved by looking at two pictures of the crowds. Shortly after, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway infamously defended Spicer by arguing that the administration was merely offering "alternative facts." This is not how the presidency normally works. It's normal, if unfortun