Painter misquotes the guy to attempt to establish a misrepresentation. From what I read in the media reports, then question put to Sessions was whether he had talked with them about the 2016 campaign, to which he said no. I don't have the dates of these events firmly mapped out, but I don't think Sessions denied talking to the Russians at all, because he wasn't asked that.Penner wrote:Vox has an interesting Q&A with Richard Painter (a Bush ethics lawyer) and here are some highlights from that article (FYI, Tara Golshan is the one asking the questions and Richard Painter is the one answering them):
...
Thttp://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ ... ia-scandalara Golshan
How do you understand Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s Senate testimony and the reports that followed?
Richard Painter
He said they had not had talks with Russians during the political campaign. And now he says, well, what he meant to say was that he had not had contact with the Russians to discuss the political campaign. But that’s not what he said.
I don't know what Painter's experience is. Maybe he doesn't do trial work, but he ought to know that if you are going to try to impeach a witness with a prior inconsistent statement, you had better make sure it's truly inconsistent. If not, and you are caught distorting the prior statement to fit a square peg into a round hole, you will piss off your judge, not to mention the jury if you're pulling such a stunt in front of them and the get the sense from the judge that you're playing games.
