Signs of trouble on Team Trump? Jeff Sessions could be in trouble; Michael Flynn could be toast

Late on Monday night, President Trump fired Sally Yates, the acting attorney general left behind by the Obama administration. Citing both the law and the Constitution, Yates had ordered the Department of Justice not to defend his ban on Muslims from certain countries entering the United States. Republicans all applauded the firing, calling her insubordinate because it was her job to carry out his orders, no questions asked. Democrats hailed her as a hero for asserting the independence that’s supposed to be conferred upon the office. To back this up they produced footage of Sen. Jeff Sessions himself — yes, now Trump’s attorney general-designate — telling Yates during her confirmation hearing that she was obligated to say no if she believed the president’s order were unlawful.

At this point it would behoove the Senate to think very, very hard about confirming Sessions as the new attorney general. It’s hard to imagine that he would ever say no if Donald Trump wanted him to execute an unlawful order. On the other hand, it’s also hard to imagine that Trump would ever ask him to execute an unlawful order that Sessions didn’t enthusiastically agree in advance should be executed, so perhaps it’s a moot point. Nonetheless this crisis should induce Democrats to stiffen their spines and vote against Sessions. According to this Washington Post article, this is just a preview of what’s to come:

The early days of the Trump presidency have rushed a nationalist agenda long on the fringes of American life into action — and Sessions, the quiet Alabam­ian who long cultivated those ideas as a Senate backbencher, has become a singular power in this new Washington.
Sessions’s ideology is driven by a visceral aversion to what he calls “soulless globalism,” a term used on the extreme right to convey a perceived threat to the United States from free trade, international alliances and the immigration of nonwhites. …
Sessions’s nomination is scheduled to be voted on Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but his influence in the administration stretches far beyond the Justice Department. From immigration and health care to national security and trade, Sessions is the intellectual godfather of the president’s policies. His reach extends throughout the White House, with his aides and allies accelerating the president’s most dramatic moves, including the ban on refugees and citizens from seven mostly Muslim nations that has triggered fear around the globe.

Even Republicans should be leery of confirming this man as the nation’s most powerful law enforcement official. But they are afraid. As former GOP congressman Richard Jolly told Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last night, “the reason Republicans won’t speak out is because we have a president who will destroy you with a single tweet.”

Still, defeating Sessions not entirely impossible. If the Democrats all stuck together it would only require three Republicans to say no. I have no idea who those profiles in courage might be — and Sessions is said to have ideological tentacles throughout the new administration. According to the Post:

The author of many of Trump’s executive orders is senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a Sessions confidant who was mentored by him and who spent the weekend overseeing the government’s implementation of the refugee ban. The tactician turning Trump’s agenda into law is deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, Sessions’s longtime chief of staff in the Senate. The mastermind behind Trump’s incendiary brand of populism is chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who, as chairman of the Breitbart website, promoted Sessions for years.