monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

The chickens are coming home to roost for Obama, Democrats, FBI, and my favorite pantsuit.

K. T. McFarland served on the presidential transition team before becoming the White House deputy national security adviser. In July, she was questioned in writing by Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, on whether she had ever spoken to Mr. Flynn about his contacts with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador to Washington, before Mr. Trump took office.

“I am not aware of any of the issues or events described above,” Ms. McFarland wrote in response, sidestepping a direct answer to the question.

An email exchange obtained by The New York Times indicates that Ms. McFarland was aware at the time of a crucial Dec. 29 phone call between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak that was intercepted by American intelligence. During that call, Mr. Flynn urged Moscow to respond cautiously to sanctions just imposed by the Obama administration for Russia’s interference in the presidential election.

Court documents released on Friday, along with Mr. Flynn’s guilty plea, indicate that senior members of Mr. Trump’s transition team were well aware of his discussions with the Russian ambassador about the Obama administration’s sanctions. Mr. Flynn talked to Mr. Kislyak by phone on Dec. 29, the day the sanctions took effect, and several days later.

In her email to another transition official hours before the first phone call, Ms. McFarland described President Barack Obama’s decision to expel 35 Russian diplomats as a last-minute attempt to discredit Mr. Trump’s victory, box him in diplomatically and provoke him into a potentially politically damaging statement in Russia’s defense.

"General Flynn is talking to the Russian ambassador this evening,” she wrote.

She also wrote: “If there is a tit-for-tat escalation, Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia which has just thrown U.S.A. election to him.” A White House lawyer said on Friday that Ms. McFarland did not mean Russia had tipped the election, only that Democrats were portraying it that way.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions argued in 1999 as an Alabama senator that President Clinton could be removed from office for obstructing justice amid an investigation into his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

His argument during the Clinton impeachment trial more than two decades ago contradicts the claim of President Trump's personal lawyer that the president cannot legally obstruct justice.

"The chief law 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 the law, and, in fact, attacked the law and the rights of a fellow citizen," Sessions said during Clinton's trial in the Senate, according to his remarks archived in the congressional record.

"Under our Constitution, equal justice requires that he forfeit his office," the Alabama senator continued.

Politico first reported Sessions's impassioned case on Monday, after Trump's outside attorney said earlier in the day that a president can't obstruct justice.

The "president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case," attorney John Dowd told Axios.

Dowd also claimed that he mistakenly crafted a tweet sent from the president's twitter account over the weekend that appeared to suggest the president knew Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, had lied to the FBI as well as Vice President Pence.

Last week, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his conversations with a top Kremlin official.

Politico also noted that 17 current senators also supported the obstruction of justice charge against Clinton including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as well as Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who served in the House at that time.

Mueller is likely over.