President Trump Attacks Attorney General Jeff Sessions Again
President Donald Trump once again attacked often embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a recent interview with The Hill.
“I don’t have an Attorney General. It’s very sad,” Trump told The Hill.
The president has made a habit of attacking his attorney general since Session’s decision in March of 2017 to recuse himself from the ongoing special counsel investigation into ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Sessions gave in to pressure from politicians on both sides of the aisle after failing to mention his two meetings with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
“I recused myself not because of any asserted wrongdoing on my part during the campaign,” Sessions told the Senate Intelligence Committee in April. “But because a Department of Justice regulation, 28 CFR 45.2, required it.”
The president doubled down on his criticism of Sessions in the interview this week.
“I’m so sad over Jeff Sessions because he came to me. He was the first Senator that endorsed me. And he wanted to be Attorney General, and I didn’t see it,” Trump told The Hill.
“And then he went through the nominating process and he did very poorly. I mean, he was mixed up and confused, and people that worked with him for, you know, a long time in the Senate were not nice to him, but he was giving very confusing answers. Answers that should have been easily answered. And that was a rough time for him.”
Trump eviscerates Sessions: "I have no attorney general" https://t.co/61LXMcxwRf pic.twitter.com/WAg4ewWJlC
— The Hill (@thehill) September 19, 2018
“He gets in and probably because of the experience that he had going through the nominating when somebody asked him the first question about Hillary Clinton or something he said ‘I recuse myself, I recuse myself,'” Trump continued.
“And now it turned out he didn’t have to recuse himself. Actually, the FBI reported shortly thereafter any reason for him to recuse himself. And it’s very sad what happened.”
After Session’s recusal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took the lead on the Russia investigation, later appointing special counsel Robert Mueller after then-FBI director James Comey was fired in May 2017.
The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself…I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined…and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2018
The president was inconclusive on whether or not he would end up firing Sessions.
“We’ll see what happens. A lot of people have asked me to do that. And I guess I study history, and I say I just want to leave things alone, but it was very unfair what he did,” he said, referring to the recusal decision.
“And my worst enemies, I mean, people that, you know, are on the other side of me, in a lot of ways including politically, have said that was a very unfair thing he did,” Trump said.
“We’ll see how it goes with Jeff. I’m very disappointed in Jeff. Very disappointed.”
