Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday finally hit back at President Donald Trump’s insults.

In response to Trump’s Wednesday morning tweet calling him “DISGRACEFUL,” Sessions said that he was confident that his office was acting appropriately — and he said that he would continue to “discharge my duties with integrity and honor” as long as he served as attorney general.

Sessions also said that the Department of Justice would “continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and the Constitution.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/jeff-sessions-finally-hits-back-raging-trump-will-keep-acting-integrity-honor/

“It means he can’t access any of the intelligence community’s products or analysis, and that effectively means he cannot do his job as the top diplomat overseeing the Israeli, Palestinian peace process,” said Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff for Leon Panetta when he served as CIA director and secretary of defense.

Bash said there were few roles of importance available in the White House for a staffer who lacked security clearance.

“None of us can even remember a West Wing staffer working on national security affairs who stayed in that job with a secret clearance,” he said. “I mean, maybe in the West Wing you could, you know, deliver the mail or mow the White House lawn or serve navy bean soup as an enlisted sailor, but you cannot be involved in policy making.”

“You can’t go into the White House situation room, have conversations, you can’t prepare the president for engagements with foreign leaders,” Bash added. “Part of that is reading those reports and working on very sensitive matters. I can’t see a single way that Jared can engage with relationships with China, with Mexico, with any of these sophisticated players, without access to top-secret, sensitive information. I think this is fatal for him.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/maybe-serve-navy-bean-soup-ex-cia-official-says-jared-kushner-cant-advise-trump-anymore/

The Guy Trump Just Named to Run His 2020 Campaign Has Been Interviewed by Congress on Russia

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/the-guy-trump-just-named-to-run-his-2020-campaign-has-been-interviewed-by-congress-on-russia/



President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Brad Parscale, the digital director of his 2016 campaign, will manage his 2020 presidential re-election bid. While Parscale has not been a central figure in inquiries into the 2016 Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, he hasn’t managed to wholly avoid the scandal.

Parscale, who helped run the campaign’s online advertising and social media targeting, has been questioned by members of at least four congressional committees, and the digital activities he oversaw have been probed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators. Parscale has, in various statements since the campaign, broadly denied knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 election, but he has never specifically denied knowing about any Trump campaign contacts with foreign governments.

In a November 3, 2017 letter to top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Parscale said, “I do not have any firsthand knowledge of foreign interference in the 2016 election.” Parscale’s response used nearly the same wording as responses provided by several other data firms employed by the Trump campaign. But Parscale’s response, unlike those from two other firms, did not explicitly deny contacts with foreign governments or foreign actors.

In a December email exchange with Mother Jones, Parscale argued he had addressed the discrepency in previous public statements. “I have said it on Fox News, 60 Minutes, Twitter, etc.,” he wrote. “Not sure how many more times I can make it clear.”

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58 years ago today, I was arrested for the first time as a participant in the sit-ins at lunch counters in downtown Nashville. Walking out to the paddy wagons, I tried to walk with a sense of pride & dignity. I felt free, I felt liberated. I felt like I crossed over. #goodtrouble



https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/968598130773168128

REVEALED: Mueller is probing Trump’s financial ties to Russia as he weighed his presidential run



https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/revealed-mueller-probing-trumps-financial-ties-russia-weight-presidential-run/

Special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating President Donald Trump’s pre-2016 business and financial ties to Russia — and is looking specifically at the time leading up to when he decided to run for president.

Two sources told CNN that Mueller is asking questions that “included the timing of Trump’s decision to seek the presidency, potentially compromising information the Russians may have had about him, and why efforts to brand a Trump Tower in Moscow fell through.”

The president has said previously that Mueller probing his finances would be a bridge too far.

Mueller and his team, according to one source, are interested in learning when specifically Trump decided to run for president “and how that coincided with his business venture.” The source explained that they told Mueller they believed Trump may have been mulling the run over as early as 2014, though the president denied as much on Twitter earlier in February.

Desperate Pennsylvania GOP says Dem candidate must be defeated to ‘stop Hillary’ from winning



https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/desperate-pennsylvania-gop-says-dem-candidate-must-defeated-stop-hillary-winning/

Even though Hillary Clinton has not run for office in well over a year now, Pennsylvania Republicans are still using the threat of her nonexistent presidency to rile up their voters.

As noted by CNN’s Rebecca Berg, a new Republican mail flyer attacks Democratic congressional candidate Conor Lamb by tying him not only to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but also to former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“Stop Hillary, stop Pelosi, stop Lamb,” the flier reads, although it doesn’t go into any details about how defeating Lamb’s candidacy would “stop” Clinton, who is not running for public office and who hasn’t held elected office since 2008.

https://twitter.com/rebeccagberg/status/968553641794777090?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw