The Note: Jeff Sessions, he's everywhere he doesn't want to be

The TAKE with Rick Klein

Jeff Sessions' long, strange trip is just getting started.

The president and his family are not making the journey any easier – and Sessions may not be making it easier for himself.

As he prepares to face a day of Capitol Hill grilling, the attorney general is everywhere.

Sessions is wrapped up in multiple angles of the Russia investigation.

He's plastered across presidential tweets.

He's looming over the race for his old Senate seat in Alabama.

He's now even opening the possibility of a new investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

The topic that's likely to get the most scrutiny today, of course, is Russia. Sessions' answers have had to shift with every passing appearance before a congressional committee.

Previous replies about not being "aware" of any Trump campaign officials' contacts with Russian entities look worse with a guilty plea and public statements suggesting he was told directly about some such communications.

Now there's a new revelation to answer for with Donald Trump Jr.'s freshly revealed message exchanges with WikiLeaks.

What is Sessions thinking amid all this?

Less than two weeks ago, as he prepared to leave for the Asia trip that's now winding down, the president pointedly refused to say whether he would fire his attorney general.

Sessions is coming in to today's hearing not by acknowledging incomplete statements on Russia, but by appearing to give in to the president's demand for more scrutiny of the Clintons.

It would appear that, first and foremost, this is a man who wants to keep his job.

The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks

Equivocate no more.

A growing chorus of Republicans is now saying, without qualifiers, that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore should drop out of the race as the allegations of sexual misconduct against him increase.

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, who is tasked with helping Republican candidates get elected, went a step further. As chairman of the National Republican Senate Committee, Gardner said Monday that if Moore would not step aside, the party should take an extreme step and actively expel him from Congress.

It was a statement, on the one hand, targeting an audience of one: a threat designed to show Moore that Capitol Hill is serious.

But Moore has built his career on rejecting what Washington thinks.

On the other hand, Gardner's threats could be seen as having had nothing to do with Alabama, but instead evidence of pressure around the remaining races and national electorates.

Already in Indiana, Nevada and Ohio, Republican candidates have taken a beating as tough questions around the party's support for Moore spread.

In any case, Moore running? More problems.

The TIP with John Parkinson

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says Alabama's Democratic nominee in next month's special election for the Senate seat is "raising all the money they need" – emphasizing that Washington Democrats are keeping a safe distance from the increasingly competitive race.

Schumer told reporters Monday that Doug Jones, the Democratic underdog in deep-red Alabama's Dec. 12 special election, has enough money to beat embattled GOP nominee Judge Roy Moore.

"They're involved. If they ask us for things, we're going to try to help them but it's an Alabama race and the Jones campaign is running it on its own," Schumer stressed.

Schumer said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will stay out of the race unless the Jones campaign makes a request for financial help.

"When they ask us for help, we'll do it," Schumer said, adding Jones is "raising tremendous money without any help from the Democratic organizations."

Asked whether he agrees with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Moore should step down, Schumer punted but admitted "I thought Moore didn't belong in the Senate even before these allegations."

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY:

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Just to be clear. If the choice is between Roy Moore and a Democrat, I would run to the polling place to vote for the Democrat," - Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., on Twitter.

NEED TO READ

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