Attorney general:
Prominent conservatives lend support to Jeff Sessions.
WASHINGTON — As President Trump continued his extraordinary public flogging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, prominent figures in Congress and the conservative media began to rally around the beleaguered attorney general and warn Trump against firing him.
Trump kept up his criticism of his attorney general on Tuesday but notably ducked several opportunities to openly call for him to resign, saying in response to a reporter’s question that “time will tell” whether Sessions remains head of the Justice Department.
The day began with a pair of tweets from the president criticizing Sessions for a “VERY weak position” on pursuing leaks and Hillary Clinton — even though Trump himself said after the election that he didn’t think it would be wise to pursue his political rival.
Later, speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden, Trump repeated that he was unhappy with Sessions’ decision to step aside from supervising the investigation into Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election and wanted to see “much tougher” treatment of leaks.
He also appeared to offer a new goal for Sessions to achieve to keep his job. “I want the attorney general to be much tougher on the leaks from intelligence agencies, which are leaking like rarely have they ever leaked before, at a very important level,” he said.
As Trump hesitated in pulling the trigger to fire Sessions, a growing chorus of the attorney general’s supporters said the president should keep Sessions on and stop undermining him in public.
“Jeff understands that we are a nation of laws, not men,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham. In a statement, Graham added that Trump’s cheering on of a Clinton investigation was “highly inappropriate” and would “run away from the long-standing American tradition of separating the law from politics regardless of party.”
In Alabama, Rep. Mo Brooks offered to withdraw from a GOP Senate primary if all other Republican candidates also agreed to withdraw, paving the way for Sessions to be the party’s Senate nominee this fall.
In his 20 years in the Senate, Sessions’ uncompromising opposition to legalization of immigrants in the country without authorization and to any efforts to ease criminal sentencing made him a favorite of many on the right wing of the Republican Party. He has pursued those policies with vigor since taking over the Justice Department.