July 25, 2017 09:03 AM UTC

The Bell Tolls For Jeff Sessions?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico sure makes it sound that way:

President Donald Trump’s persistent attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions have raised an urgent question: Is Trump trying to make Sessions quit?

After calling Sessions “beleaguered” on Monday, Trump on Tuesday morning ramped up his public shame campaign against one of his earliest high-profile supporters…

Incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci on Tuesday morning said it was “probably right” that Trump wants Sessions out of the job. [Pols emphasis]

When radio host Hugh Hewitt asked, “It’s clear the president wants him gone, right?” Scaramucci replied that “I have an enormous amount of respect for the attorney general, but I do know the president pretty well, and if there’s this level of tension in the relationship that — that’s public, you’re probably right.”

Scaramucci also said he didn’t want to speak for Trump but said the president is “obviously frustrated” and that Trump and Sessions “need to work this thing out.”

Local observers are particularly keen to see how this feud resolves, since concurrent to the story of President Donald Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with Attorney General Jeff Sessions are widespread rumors that Sessions is about to launch a major crackdown on the retail marijuana industry in Colorado and elsewhere. Given that marijuana enforcement is more of a personal obsession of Sessions’ than something the Trump administration as a whole is believed to prioritize, we would expect the immediate threat to Colorado’s marijuana industry to dissipate with Sessions’ departure.

The political collateral damage a marijuana industry crackdown would do to Colorado Republicans may well keep them from mourning overly if Sessions is forced out, regardless of how they feel about the Russia scandal or any other stated reasons for his firing. All politics, after all, is local.