Jeff Sessions between a rock and a hard place

For nearly a year, the president has critiqued the work of the Justice Department and complained about Mr. Sessions for perceived infractions and acts of disloyalty.

[...]

The president criticized his Senate confirmation performance and his decision to remove himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, even musing that he would not have hired Mr. Sessions had he anticipated the recusal. He berated him so severely over Mr. Mueller’s appointment that Mr. Sessions offered his resignation.

  NYT

He must have originally thought the little lickspittle was less stubborn. He obviously pegged him for a coward, and a weakling. Why else would he have been so insulting and vicious in his attack on a man who knows where some of the bodies are buried and who lied to protect him in a Congressional hearing?

And last week, after Mr. Trump latched on to allegations in a contentious Republican memo that the Justice Department and F.B.I. had abused their surveillance powers and called their conduct a “disgrace,” Mr. Sessions offered a meager defense of his lawyers and the institution. “I have great confidence in the men and women of this department,” Mr. Sessions said in a statement after the memo was released. “But no department is perfect.”

I hope he doesn't expect his subordinates to have his back.

His muted response to Mr. Trump’s remarks stood in stark contrast with the defiant statements made by Christopher A. Wray, the director of the F.B.I. “I am determined to defend your integrity and professionalism every day,” Mr. Wray said in a message to F.B.I. employees. “Talk is cheap; the work you do is what will endure.”

[...]

“Sessions’s silence is evidence that Trump’s public neutering of anyone close to this investigation is working,” said Paul Pelletier, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia who was a federal prosecutor for nearly three decades.

I'm not sure. I don't see evidence of it working on anyone else.  It may be working on Sessions, but then Sessions has the added factor of being up to his eyeballs in the Russian collusion mess, so that may be keeping him silent as much as Trump's ugliness.

Mr. Pelletier said that although the attorneys general with whom he worked, from Edwin Meese III to Eric H. Holder Jr., clashed with their staff, they gave prosecutors and the institution itself unwavering public support.

[...]

The department is often involved in high-profile cases, sometimes with powerful people at the center who seek to discredit the investigations against them. “Prosecutors have to stand silently and cannot defend their work to the public,” [Daniel Petalas, a former prosecutor] said. “They can only hope that the leadership will serve as a bulwark.”

We're in a new Amerika.

The silence from Mr. Sessions could have a more pernicious effect on the staff than the blow to morale, [...] officials say. The condemnations send the message that people can be persecuted for holding political beliefs at odds with those of the president.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.