{"id":17062,"date":"2017-06-08T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/06\/08\/is-sessions-out-ag-offers-to-quit-as-trumps-russia-frustration-mounts\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T22:27:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T06:27:10","slug":"is-sessions-out-ag-offers-to-quit-as-trumps-russia-frustration-mounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/06\/08\/is-sessions-out-ag-offers-to-quit-as-trumps-russia-frustration-mounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Sessions Out? AG Offers to Quit as Trump\u2019s Russia Frustration Mounts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sessions leaving office, could mean good news for cannabis advocates. Even Donald Trump is sick of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions, America\u2019s all-purpose antebellum bogeyman and the greatest existential threat currently faced by the legal marijuana industry, offered the president his resignation last month, in response to Trump\u2019s mounting frustration with Sessions\u2019s ties to Russia, POLITICO reported. Trump rejected Sessions\u2019s offer to quit. But the incident reflects both the increasing turmoil within the administration as the probe into its connections with Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia widens, and the sinking influence enjoyed by Sessions \u2014 an early Trump supporter, with whom most of Trump\u2019s Russian ties begins \u2014 as a result. The famously mercurial Trump still refuses to publicly give his attorney general any vocal support. On the morning of March 31 \u2014 as a Justice Department in full damage-control mode tried to deflect attention with an unrelated memo \u2014 Trump himself declined to answer reporters asking if he still had confidence in Sessions. Trump declines to respond when reporters ask if he still has confidence in Sessions. \u201cThank you,\u201d he mouths, heading to helicopter. \u2014 Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) June 7, 2017 With Trump jetting to Ohio, later that day, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway \u2014 the same Kellyanne Conway who coined the infamous term \u201calternative facts\u201d\u2014 told Axios only that Trump \u201chas confidence in the people who work for him.\u201d Sessions\u2019s appointment has struck deep fear into the country\u2019s legal marijuana industry. The former Alabama senator \u2014 who was rejected for a federal judgeship in the 1980s amid allegations of racism \u2014 is an avowed old-school drug warrior who has made his displeasure with cannabis legalization abundantly clear. But despite repeated threats and ominous signs, Sessions has yet to use the federal Justice Department \u2014 which is still operating without U.S. attorneys in many states \u2014 to interfere with the country\u2019s popular and widening experiment with marijuana legalization. Sessions offered his resignation to the president in May, shortly before Trump departed for his nine-day international trip to the Middle East, reported POLITICO, citing an unnamed administration official who \u201cregularly speaks with Sessions.\u201d Trump is reportedly furious with his attorney general over Sessions\u2019s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into the contacts between Trump\u2019s presidential campaign and the Russian government. Sessions met with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, in December and made no mention of the meeting despite being asked directly about such contacts during his confirmation hearings in January. \u201cI have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians,\u201d Sessions testified under oath. Similar revelations of previously unreported ties led to the resignation of Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s former national security director, after only 19 days on the job. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as a politically-motivated \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d but believes Sessions\u2019s recusal \u201cmade it seem like he\u2019d done something wrong,\u201d according to a March report in POLITICO. \u201cHe\u2019s tired of everyone thinking his\u2026
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