Sessions and Perjury; Polemaster Comments Tomorrow (I Hope)

This is supposed to be a blog about amateur astronomy, but the Trump Administration is a daily stream of blunders and lies that are impossible to let pass. The latest:

July 2016

According to the State Department, Sessions meets twice with Sergey Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States. At that time Sessions is an advisor to the Trump Campaign. Kislyak is the same person who met with NSA advisor Mike Flynn; as a result of those meetings, Flynn would be forced to resign on February 13, 2017.

January 10, 2017 Senate Confirmation Hearing

Senator Franken: "If there was any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this (2016) campaign, what would you do?," the Minnesota Democrat asked. 

 

Mr. Sessions (under oath): "I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."

Recall that this is the same Jeffrey Sessions who voted to impeach President Clinton. Here is what he said about his vote (I have put the key statements in bold):

It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that President William Jefferson Clinton perjured himself before a Federal grand jury and has persisted in a continuous pattern of lying and obstructing justice. The chief law-enforcement officer of the land, whose oath of office calls on him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, crossed the line and failed to defend and protect the law and, in fact, attacked the law and the rights of a fellow citizen. Under our Constitution, equal justice requires that he forfeit his office. For these reasons, I felt compelled to vote to convict and remove the President from office. . . .

It is crucial to our system of justice that we demand the truth. I fear that an acquittal of this President will weaken the legal system by providing an option for those who consider being less than truthful in court. Whereas the handling of the case against President Nixon clearly strengthened the nation's respect for law, justice and truth, the Clinton impeachment may unfortunately have the opposite result.

 It's rather plain that Sessions knows what to do with perjurers: They must resign. Furthermore, Sessions says that allowing a perjurer to remain in office will weaken the legal system.

I couldn't agree more.

So what is happening? Is Sessions living by his own words? No, the response is one of denial, both from Sessions and the White House.

It's been over a month since Flynn resigned because of his meetings with the same Russian. What has Sessions been doing in that time? Why didn't he admit to what he had done last month? I guess he and his boss know what is best for the country, even if the truth has to be kept from the public.

This is a good old fashioned cover up, a stonewall Nixon might have admired. But we do remember what happened to Nixon, don't we? Evidently Republicans don't.

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And now the obligatory astronomy content.

It may be clear tonight! That means I can test my new PoleMaster. I probably won't do any imaging because I'll be in my light-polluted back yard. I could travel to Cherry Grove observatory, but the recent heavy snowfall (about 15 inches at the observatory) has probably made the site unusable.

Tomorrow I hope to add a glowing review of the PoleMaster to the many that have been written.