The National Laughingstock Coordinates Another Hit With Obama's Loyalist Leave-Behinds

All in the service of relitigating the election results they just can't get over.

They're claiming that Sessions either lied or failed to disclose two brief encounters with the Soviet Ambassador "during the campaign" (but before Sessions joined it).

However, all of the oral questions Sessions answered were answered in reference to a written questionnaire submitted to Sessions by Senators, which Sessions submitted written answers to. The questionnaire is the document everyone is talking about here. Sessions is answering additional questions about the questionnaire.

And the questionnaire itself does not ask if Sessions had any contacts with Russian officials. As a Senator on the Armed Service Committee, presumably this would be a silly question to ask, as such Senators meet with foreign functionaries frequently.

Here's what Sessions was actually asked in the questionnaire -- which forms the template and the context of all the oral questions that followed:

Per the National Laughingstock, which does not draw attention to a particular phrase, but which I will, using bolding:

"Several of the President-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?" Leahy wrote.

Sessions responded with one word: "No."

About the 2016 election. Not just if he had any contacts, but if he had any contacts about the 2016 election.

The National Laughingstock acts like it's a contraction that he did have two fleeting contacts with the Russian Ambassador -- apparently not noticing (or hoping the reader doesn't notice) that it's not any and all contacts that were asked about, but contacts specifically about the 2016 election.

The National Laughingstock of course has no evidence of what the conversations was about. So there is no contradiction at all.

Now, in the oral hearings, Al Franken did ask a question about other Trump staff's contacts with the Russians. He based this on a breaking Cable Laughingstock News report. His question was convoluted, and was about Trump staffers being in "constant" contact with Russians and "exchanges of information" about the campaign between them.

Sessions answered this question thus:

"I'm not aware of any of those activities," he responded. He added: "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."

Note that the National Laughingstock does not quote Franken's full question which prompted this response -- because if they did, you'd see how convoluted it was, and how he was imprecise about what he was asking about.

I'll do the work that the National Laughingstock did not do and provide the transcript of the question, so you can see just how unsure Sessions would be about precisely what he was being asked about.

Franken's question went like this:

CNN has just published a story and I'm telling you this about a story that has just been published, I'm not expecting you to know whether it's true or not, but CNN just published a story, alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week [The Pee-Pee Gate Documents-- ace] that included information that quote "Russian operatives claimed to have comproming personal and financial information about Mr. Trump." These documents also allegedly say quote "there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government." Again I'm telling you this is just coming out so, you know... but, if it's true it's obviously extremely serious. And if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russians in the course of this campaign, what will you do?"

Note that Franken's question is not "did you personally have any contact with the Russians?" If it had been, and Sessions said no to that, it might be considered perjury.

That's not his question. His question, after this long pre-amble and references to Trumpian Sprinkle Parties in Moscow and allegations of "continuing exchanges of information" about the campaign is, if information about that comes to light, "What will you do?"

That is the question. Not if Sessions had any contact with the Russians. Just "What will you do?" if the Trump Water Sports League documents prove to be true.

Sessions' answer to that is obviously not talking about his own contacts -- it's about these outlandish allegations Franken is referencing.

So when Sessions says,

I'm not aware of any of those activities," he responded. He added: "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."

he's referring to the claims Franken is making, and in context, "I did not have communications with the Russians" is about Franken's claims of "constant exchanges of information" -- and, as the questionnaire specified, about the 2016 campaign.

It was a surprise question, and Sessions offered a hasty "Jeese, I have no idea what you're talking about here" response. And from that, the Democrat-Media Party is now claiming "conscious, premeditated perjury."

Yeah, go fuck yourselves silly.

Wait, you already did.

Two videos below.

1. In the first video below, you will see Al Franken frequently refer to the "questionnaire" that Sessions answered. This was the written questionnaire noted above. The first video is not about Russian contacts -- it's about Franken's insistence that Sessions didn't file as many anti-descrimination lawsuits as he has previously claimed, and that his work on the cases he did file was not as extensive as he claimed -- but you keep hearing him refer to the "questionnaire."

Let me suggest this context: Sessions, frequently asked specifically about the questionnaire, would naturally take questions even when the quetionnaire was not specifically mentioned as being further questions about the questionnaire.

And the questionnaire, on this point, spoke of contact with the Russians "about the campaign.

2. The second video shows Franken's actual question about Russian contact. Note that even in this question, Franken begins by offering up the context of CNN's then-breaking breathless report of "frequent communications" between Trump staff and the Russians with "exchange of information" between them.

That is the context of Franken's actual question -- a one minute recap of CNN's discredited claims. Claims which specifically included "exchanges of information" about the campaign.

And that's the actual question Sessions is answering.

I would say that in context, Sessions would quite reasonably think Franken is asking him if he had "exchanges of information" about the campaign.

Even the end of his answer -- "and I'm unable to comment on that," because, of course, Franken is asking about communications between third parties and fourth parties Sessions has no idea about -- indicates that he understood the question this way.

He's saying, in essence: I don't know about the litany of claims you just read to me, but I haven't had any communications of the sort you just described to me.

Or, in plainer terms: "Brah, I don't know what in the hell you are even talking about. Fuck, dude. Come up for air once in a while."

The media, which has been described as having an almost autistic level of literalness in its parsing of Trump's comments, seems to be doing the same thing to Sessions here, ignoring the actual context of the questions and what Franken was actually implying and asking about.

Now you tell me: When the National Laughinstock concealed from you a key piece of information-- the actual question, ending "What would you do?," asked of Sessions, which they claim resulted in a direct lie -- were they just lazy, or did were they deliberately hiding the information from you because they knew if they supplied it it would undermine their whole Deep State Hit Job story?

posted by Ace at 09:30 AM

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