Darnit, where did the Trump White House get the idea of moving Attorney General Jeff Sessions over to the Department of Homeland Security and replacing him at the Department of Justice with someone even more (somehow) willing to let Trump get away with murdering Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller? They got it from somewhere, because here's ABC News reporting that "Trump aides" are pushing for it, which means everyone was yelling at each other and that got yelled about some.
They denied it's going to happen yesterday, so look for Sessions to be appointed to DHS Friday evening and new AG David Duke recess-appointed retroactive to 2012.
Or, apparently, they could make... Rick Perry the Attorney General somehow? Philip Bump, correspondent of the Washington Post, are YOU the one who gave Trump's people this idea? You came out with your worryingly correct-sounding explanation of how Rick Perry could become AG the day before Reince got pushed out and Kelly's spot at DHS opened up. Bump talked to Paul Butler, an expert in this sort of shit, who told him:
"'The Vacancies Act says that — notwithstanding any kind of other rule, like the regular DOJ succession statute — that the president, and only the president, can appoint an acting head of the Department of Justice to that position as long as that person has been confirmed by the Senate,” Butler explained. “So if there’s another person who works in the federal government whose job requires presidential appointment and then confirmation by the Senate, then that person is entitled to be put in, in this case, as the acting attorney general.'"
In other words, Trump could (maybe) make Ben Carson the Attorney General. The person being replaced needs to die, resign or be "otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office" which might get in the way, but if you desperately shuffle your AG somewhere else because you're a flailing, petty crook with an ego problem and incredible luck who's in way over his head, that technically means they are "otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office" so, fine.
But there is no way anybody in the White House knew you could just swap one of these Cabinet guys for another! That's complicated stuff! Maybe Reince knew it. Or maybe they really do get these ideas from just, like, stuff you can google.
So Washington Post friends, please be careful about what you explain Trump can do. Like, don't find some political science Jedi who knows about an incorrectly placed semicolon that gives the President the power to nationalize the press forever.
Incidentally, the first place on the internet to alight upon the idea of moving Sessions to DHS appears to have been a blog called American Lookout , which has writers who've published on Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and one that's new to me called Three Percenter Nation, which refers (supposedly) to the percentage of colonists who actually fought against the British, and now denotes an association of people who fantasize about insurrection with varying degrees of wanting to actually do it.
So, it's fairly clear that Bannon got the idea here, and/or maybe it was Jared who read about the Cabinet switcheroo in the Post and told Dana Perino who told Donald Trump through the tv.
Or maybe they did come up with it themselves, who the hell knows. It won't be Giuliani for DHS though, he was a prosecutor, he knows a lot of these guys are fucked.
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[ ABC News / Seattle Times / American Lookout / Crooks and Liars ]
But if Sessions refuses to resign?
Even being ordered to resign is nothing more than a request. Of course, the offer or order to resign usually comes, implicitly or explicitly, with an "or you're fired." And usually, a person given that choice resigns for career and/or severance reasons. But Sessions loves this gig, has no other career or money worries, and Trump is said to be reluctant to fire people (plus, he would pay a high political cost, of which he may or may not have any appreciation). He may be able to stay put until Trump acts.
Another scenario has Sessions refusing DHS, and refusing to resign, and Trump fires Sessions for insubordination. And right wing media will jump to defend the firing as having nothing to do with Mueller and the rest. That Trump had been doing everything short of actually firing Sessions for weeks won't matter much. It was insubordination! Case closed.
I actually thought about that one too, but decided not to mention it because I didn't want to get into an argument with anybody about how ridiculous it was, since there were people on here advocating for it at the time.