Donald Trump is Blaming All His Problems on Jeff Sessions Now

Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.

Donald Trump spent Monday morning accusing Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department of devising a lame,“politically correct” version of his Muslim travel ban, but he’s even more enraged with Sessions behind closed doors, according to reporting from The New York Times.

Trump is reportedly especially unhappy that Sessions—who was an early supporter and one of his only public backers in the Senate throughout the campaign—recused himself from the DOJ probe into Russian tampering in the 2016 election.

The Times reports that Trump:

…has intermittently fumed for months over Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal conversations. In Mr. Trump’s view, they said, it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation.

Although Sessions recused himself from leading the probe back in March—after revelations that he, too, failed to disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador during the campaign—Trump fumed about the move for “months,” according to the paper.

He felt blindsided by Sessions and retaliated by ripping into top aides in the Oval Office the next day, four people familiar with the dressing-down told the Times. Luckily, he managed to redirect his anger into some ill-advised tweets accusing President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower instead.

WHAT ELSE?

• The Intercept published a top secret National Security Agency report on Monday that showed the agency has evidence that Russian military officials launched a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent phishing emails to more than 100 local officials in the run-up to the November election.
• Before the day was out, the Justice Department announced it had arrested and charged Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old government contractor, with allegedly leaking top secret information to a news organization. While court documents didn’t identify the organization who allegedly received the leaks, a source told The Washington Post that Winner was The Intercept’s source.
• The Trump family plans to expand its real estate empire with a string of four budget motels in Mississippi with patriotic themes.
• Here are some things Trump tweeted this morning, presumably from the toilet:

WHAT’S NEXT?

• Former FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, and CNN is already running a countdown clock. Can you wait? I sure can.