During a Thursday press conference at the Department of Justice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated that he would not be stepping down from his position in the Trump administration.
Gage Skidmore / Flickr.comIn an interview with The New York Times, President Donald Trump attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russian Federation investigation.
He discussed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who, given Sessions’ recusal, acts as the head of the Justice Department on Russia-related matters.
He added: “If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair – and that’s a mild word – to the president”. “How do you take a job and then recuse yourself?” “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else”, Trump said.
Trump’s livid reference was to Session’s decision to recuse himself from overseeing the FBI investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian Federation. Despite his protests to the contrary, Trump continues to closely follow cable TV news coverage, and he frequently interrupts conversations about other topics to complain bitterly about the probe or, on occasion, predict that it will soon be behind him.
President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time on February 28th, 2017. By going ahead and firing Comey, Trump prompted Comey to leak incriminating details about their meetings.
The interview that Trump gave on Wednesday to three reporters from the Times offers us that opportunity. He kept his scheduled appointments Thursday.
Since taking office on January 20, Trump has been on a roller coaster ride, and the gut-wrenching twists and turns looked set to continue after Jeff Sessions vowed to stay on at the Justice Department despite a stinging public rebuke from the commander-in-chief.
The first US senator to endorse Trump during the presidential run, Sessions bonded with him over shared hard-line immigration views.
A Sessions resignation could throw Mueller’s investigation into uncertainty.
“I don’t think we’re under investigation”, Trump said. So he recuses himself.
Defense attorney William Jeffress, who represented former President Richard Nixon, said he’s concerned that Trump’s rhetoric about Sessions reveals a larger misunderstanding of the attorney general’s role.
“There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any”, said Trump in the interview. At that point, the scope of the Russia investigation and its focus on the Trump team wasnt well known, but she would later testify about how she believed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn was compromised due to his dealings with Russians, and she had informed the White House counsel of this. After Mueller was named special counsel instead, “I said, ‘What the hell is this all about?'” Trump said.
“When he brought it to me, I said this is really made-up junk”, Trump said.