Trump in blistering attack on attorney general

President accuses justice chief of being ‘unfair’ to him by removing himself from Russian links inquiry

PRESIDENT Donald Trump went to war with his own attorney general, excoriating Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the investigation into links between the president’s campaign and Russia.

Mr Sessions, America’s top prosecutor, said he had no immediate plans to resign following the blistering public rebuke. He said: “We love this job, we love this Justice Department, and I plan to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate.”

Mr Sessions was the first US senator to support Mr Trump’s then unlikely bid for the White House last year, and became one of his most ardent supporters.

He removed himself from the Justice Department’s Russia inquiry four months ago after it emerged he had failed to disclose his own encounters with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian am- bassador.

Ultimately, that led to the appointment of a special counsel, Robert Mueller, to lead the probe.

In an extended interview with The

New York Times, Mr Trump said: “Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. It’s extremely unfair – and that’s a mild word – to the president. If he would have recused himself before taking the job, I would have said ‘Thanks Jeff, but I’m not going to take you’.”

Mr Trump also raised the prospect that he could fire Mr Mueller, insinuating there were conflicts of interest in his position. He said: “There were many other conflicts that I haven’t said, but I will at some point,” and also warned Mr Mueller not to extend the inquiry to include the Trump family’s finances, calling that a “violation”.

In the interview Mr Trump also refused to commit to a state visit to the UK. He was invited by Theresa May in January but no plans have materialised.

There has been speculation that he wants to postpone his visit until he can be assured of a warm reception, and that he asked Mrs May to “fix” that.

Asked “Will you go to Britain?” Mr Trump said: “Ah, they’ve asked me”, before moving on to heap praise on Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who he visited a week ago.

Mr Trump said he went to France after Mr Macron told him, “They love you in France”.

The president added: “He (Macron) is a great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand. People don’t realise he loves holding my hand. And that’s good, as far as that goes.”

Mr Trump denied reports of a “secret” meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 in Hamburg two weeks ago, saying the two exchanged “pleasantries” for 15 minutes over dessert at a meal for world leaders.

Mr Trump said: “I actually talked about Russian adoption with him.”

“Adoption” was also discussed at a meeting between Mr Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and a Russian lawyer in June 2016.

The three men are all due to testify next week in front of a Senate committee investigating Russian links.

The New York Times, citing financial records in Cyprus, reported that Mr Manafort was at one time up to $17 million in debt to “pro-russia interests” before he joined the Trump campaign.

A spokesman for him told the newspaper the records were “stale and do not purport to reflect any current financial arrangements”.