An interesting thing happened recently. Okay, a lot of interesting things, but this is a more subtle thing that happened. Just recently, a few GOP senators indicated that they would be open to the idea of Trump firing Jeff Sessions as the Attorney General. Now, previously, these senators had warned the President that if he fired the AG, they would not hold any hearing on the AG's replacement, which they totally can do. Now, they're open to it, but only after the elections.
Now, why would they do that? Some have suggested that its to shut down the Russia investigation, but everyone in DC but Trump knew that Sessions had to recuse himself as he was implicated in the whole mess. They all know the special prosecutor dance, and just have to suck it up. No, I think they're pissed over the prosecution of Michael Cohen and the Stormy Daniels payoff by the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) - which Sessions does still have nominal control over. Already we've not only seen Michael Cohen plead guilty, but in his allocution, he directly implicated the President in the campaign finance violations, which the President unhelpfully admitted to the very next day on Fox.
Worst of all, the charges the SDNY is bringing have state law equivalents, and so the information they gather can, and probably will, be used by the NY AG or the NYC DA, both of whom represent a state or locality that isn't exactly Trump friendly. In short, on the SDNY stage, the walls are closing in on the President, his business, and his family. And unlike the Feds, there's no outstanding opinion that by the NY AG or the NYC DA that would prevent them from indicting Trump while he's in office.
Now, if Trump was a normal politician, he'd resign. After all, he's now directly implicated in multiple felonies, and now that David Pecker of the National Enquirer and Trump's CFO have both received immunity deals, it's only going to get worse. The hope would be that by resigning, he could cut a deal for little to no jail time for himself and his kids.
But, as we've seen, Trump is not a normal politician, and his crimes are such that even if he wanted to set up a deal for no jail time, he may not get it. Additionally, in the 1980's, when pushed by the FBI, Trump provided testimony to the FBI about his contacts with the Mafia, particularly the Genovese family. If pushed hard enough, Trump will flip - he has before.
And what if he does flip? Obviously, his testimony on the tax fraud and campaign violations are of no use, as they have him dead to rights on those. No, if he flips, he's going to provide testimony about Russia, and the Russian collusion. As we know, the Russian collusion in the 2016 election went way beyond Trump. Russia placed a spy in the NRA, hacked numerous voting systems, and the GOP is voting down bills that would prevent further hacking. It's possible that this collusion could go deeper than we think.
If that's the case, then Trump flipping would be devastating to the GOP. Also, keep in mind that Trump is a narcissist, and when cornered he lashes out at his allies. Would he take the GOP down with him? Definitely. If anything, his anger towards the GOP would be greater than towards the Democrats.
I think that Senators Graham, et al., know that and are now deeply concerned about how the next few months shake out. And since this new pressure is coming directly from SDNY, and not Bob Mueller, their anger and frustration is focused on Jeff Sessions.
