In the face of calls to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the ties between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russian officials, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that he would consider having a special prosecutor, but not to investigate Trump's Russian connections.
He told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that he may name a special prosecutor to look into supposed Justice Department scandals during Obama's presidency.
Hewitt: Now let me switch to the Department itself, Mr. Attorney General. It had a bad eight years. I’m a proud veteran of the Department of Justice, as you are. But the IRS case, the Fast and Furious case, Secretary Clinton’s server, the Department of Justice came under great criticism. How about an outside counsel, not connected to politics, to review the DOJ’s actions in those matters with authority to bring charges if underlying crimes are uncovered in the course of the investigation, and just generally to look at how the Department of Justice operated in the highly-politicized Holder-Lynch years?
Sessions: Well, I’m going to do everything I possibly can to restore the independence and professionalism of the Department of Justice. So we would have to consider whether or not some outside special counsel is needed. Generally, a good review of that internally is the first step before any such decision is made.
Hewitt: Will you be looking at the IRS investigation specifically, because that left many of us thinking that the Department of Justice had laid down for a terrible abuse of political power?
Sessions: It does. That circumstance raised a lot of questions in my mind, and when I was in the Senate. So it is a matter of real concern to me.
Claims that the Obama administration used the IRS to go after conservative groups, which Sessions described as "a matter of real concern," of course, have been widely debunked.
Maybe Sessions should consider listening to the majority of Americans who think the Justice Department should have a special prosecutor look into the connections between the Russian government and the Trump campaign rather than launch yet another investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails or whether Obama persecuted the Tea Party.
