Sessions’ seat growing hot as GOP fans flames
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ job appears increasingly in peril as key Senate Republicans who once dismissed the idea of his firing are now signaling his replaceability.
Until now, President Trump’s public ire at Sessions over his recusal from the Russia investigation had been seen as mostly symbolic. Sessions was protected by the conventional wisdom of Senate Republicans that any attempt to confirm his replacement during the ongoing probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be a political nightmare — or even a constitutional crisis.
Last year, U.S.
Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters that if Trump fired Sessions, “there’d be holy hell to pay.”
Now the South Carolina Republican, who has had Trump’s ear in recent months, has reversed course — a key signal that Sessions’ days could be numbered.
“We need an attorney general that can work with the president, that can lead the Department of Justice,” Graham said yesterday on NBC’s “Today” show. The Trump-Sessions relationship, Graham said, “is beyond repair.”
“He’s not the only man in this country that can be attorney general,” Graham said, adding that his replacement should vow to protect the Mueller probe from political interference. “He’s a fine man … but the relationship is not working.”
Graham said he didn’t think Sessions should be ousted before the midterms. But Trump has never held to others’ timetables, and a signal from another Republican may indicate he doesn’t need to.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley told Bloomberg News that he could squeeze a confirmation hearing for attorney general into the jam-packed fall schedule that includes the hearing for Supreme Court hopeful Brett Kavanaugh. Earlier this year he said such a scheduling feat would be impossible.
That’s bad news for Sessions. The good news: He has the public support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who understands that the stakes may still be too high. “Yeah, I have total confidence in the attorney general,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters yesterday. “I think he ought to say exactly where he is.”
“There is probably a little more momentum on the Hill for firing Sessions,” said GOP strategist Matt Mackoviak, “but it is nowhere near where it needs to be given the political risk.”
But that may only buy Sessions a small amount of time.
“I do not see Trump firing AG Sessions before the 2018 midterms because of the possible political blowback at the ballot box,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell, adding that a post-election firing is “a real possibility.”