Jeff Session: Trump's White House lapdog

Legend has it that Harry Truman once quipped: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." Sure sounds like Harry, but whether he said it or not, Truman knew what he was talking about. It transcends politics. Every president since Teddy Roosevelt, Republican or Democrat, has had a dog.

Every president, that is, except Donald Trump. But that's OK. Trump doesn't need a pet dog. He has Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who's as loyal a lapdog as ever graced the White House.

Sessions proved his loyalty again this week with his stunningly ill-prepared appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. He ostensibly showed up to answer questions, but he raised more questions than he answered – especially about the independence of the Justice Department under Donald Trump. Here's the backstory, as best outlined by CNN's Chris Cillizza.

On Nov. 2, having already called the criminal justice system "a joke," Trump told radio host Larry O'Connor: "You know, the saddest thing is that because I'm the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department." In other words, he lamented, "I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I'm not supposed to be doing the kinds of things that I would love to be doing."

And what kind of things would Trump love to be doing himself, or have the Justice Department do for him? No doubt about that. The very next morning, he blasted off a series of tweets, beginning at 6:57 a.m. with: "Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems."

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Then Donald Trump left on a 12-day trip to Asia. And, lo and behold, the day before he heads back to the United States – by sure coincidence! – Attorney General Sessions announced he'd asked Justice Department lawyers to consider whether or not to appoint a special counsel to investigate – guess what? – "all the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems." You could almost hear Sessions panting: "Did I do just what you wanted, boss? Can I keep my job now?"

According to Sessions, there are three matters that might demand appointment of another special counsel: Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, James Comey's decision to clear Clinton of any wrongdoing in regards to the emails and Donald Trump's favorite whipping boy, the infamous Uranium One deal. Not one of them is worth 10 minutes of DOJ time.

There have already been some 15 congressional hearings into Hillary's emails, without discovering anything other than that it was a stupid, but not illegal, thing to do. Nor can Comey be faulted, after a year-long FBI investigation of the email "scandal," for coming to the same conclusion. And the uranium deal's already been examined and debunked many times.

One more time, for the record, here are the facts on Uranium One, as boldly summarized most recently by Shepard Smith on Fox News. In 2007, Uranium One, a South African energy company, merged with the Canadian Company Eurasia Energy. Three years later, Eurasia Energy, whose holdings included a Wyoming mining firm that produced 20 percent of America's uranium, was bought by the Russian energy giant Rosatom.

Based on that transaction, candidate Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of "pay to play": undermining national security by approving a deal to sell uranium to Russia in exchange for $145 million donated by nine investors to the Clinton Foundation – a baseless charge first made in the 2015 book "Clinton Cash," written by Peter Schweitzer, senior editor of Breitbart News.

In fact, as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had no power to approve the purchase of Eurasia Energy by Rosatom, nor did she personally participate in the decision. As required by law, the sale was reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment, led by the secretary of the treasury and comprised of nine federal agencies – all of whom approved the transaction unanimously. And, under the deal, no American uranium can be sold outside the United States.

As for "pay to play," according to PolitiFact, $141 million of the $145 million given to the Clinton Foundation came from one investor, Frank Giustra, a Canadian investor, who sold his shares in Eurasia Energy in 2007 – three years before the Rosatom deal and 18 months before Hillary became secretary of state.

In other words, the Uranium One deal is a big nothing-burger, offering nothing to chew on – unless you happen to be a hapless White House lapdog, trying to save your job.