Trump forces out Sessions
Attorney general’s chief of staff will fill in for now
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday after a yearlong public shaming campaign that has raised questions about whether the president improperly interfered with the Justice Department’s inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Trump, who requested Sessions’ resignation, named the attorney general’s chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, to serve as interim attorney general.
“Since the day I was honored to be sworn in as attorney general of the United States, I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty and serve my country,” Sessions wrote in a seven-paragraph letter. “I have done so to the best of my ability to support the fundamental legal processes that are the foundation of justice.”
The departure of Sessions, once one of Trump’s most vocal and earliest supporters during the 2016 campaign, has been expected for weeks yet the move immediately exposed new divisions between the president and many Republican lawmakers who regard Sessions as a champion of the conservative movement.
Focused on Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, Trump has savaged him in interviews, tweets, and news conferences as “beleaguered” and often expressed “disappointment” in his attorney general.
In September, Trump took his criticism to a new level when he appeared to completely disassociate Sessions with the administration, including the attorney general’s border enforcement efforts.
“I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad,” Trump said in an interview with Hill.TV. “I’m not happy at the border, I’m not happy with numerous things, not just this.”
The broadsides became even more pointed in recent weeks, with Trump describing Sessions as “disgraceful” for asking the Justice Department’s inspector general – not prosecutors – to review Republican allegations of surveillance abuses related to the monitoring of a former Trump campaign aide.
Sessions’ recusal in March 2017 for failing to disclose election-year meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak – and Trump’s abrupt dismissal of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 – prompted the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as the Justice Department’s special counsel to direct the ongoing, wide-ranging Russia inquiry.
Mueller’s appointment and the probe’s expansion to include a deep examination of the Trump family’s finances and possible obstruction of justice has only served to stoke the president’s increasing anxiety – and his attacks on the attorney general.
Trump’s regular stream of Twitter attacks against his own Justice Department and attorney general triggered public concern that the president’s aim in forcing Sessions from office is to wrest greater control of the Russia investigation.
With Sessions out, Trump could appoint a new attorney general without apparent Russia conflicts, allowing for a possible takeover of the investigation he calls a “witch hunt.”
“I think you have to ask the question of who benefits from Sessions’ removal,” said Jimmy Gurule, a former assistant attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. “And the answer is President Trump.”
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served under President George W. Bush, credited Sessions with “maintaining unusual equanimity and dignity under fire,” while dutifully carrying out Trump’s agenda on a range of issues including immigration and violent crime enforcement.