Trump vs. Sessions
Key Republicans give president path to fire attorney general
Public feud continues, with rumbling from the Senate that the president may fire his attorney general after the midterm elections.
Donald Trump, who’s long threatened to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, may have received a crucial go-ahead signal from two Republican senators with a key condition attached: Wait until after the November elections.
Confronted with the criminal convictions this week of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, the president has only reaffirmed his open resentment that Sessions recused himself from what’s become a wide-ranging investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The pivotal message Thursday came from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who oscillates between criticizing many of the president’s policies and defending a president who sometimes invites him to go golfing at a Trump-branded resort.
“The president’s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that’s qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” Graham told reporters.
But he added that forcing out Sessions before November “would create havoc” with efforts to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, as well as with the midterm elections Nov. 6 that will determine whether Republicans keep control of Congress.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, also changed his position Thursday, saying in an interview that he’d be able to make time for hearings for a new attorney general after saying previously that the panel was too busy to tackle that explosive possibility.
Sessions, who represented Alabama in the Senate for 20 years and was an early backer of Trump, defended his performance in a statement Thursday.
“We have had unprecedented success at effectuating the president’s agenda,” Sessions said. “While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”
Trump, in a series of Friday morning messages on Twitter, implored Sessions to go after “the other side” in the Russia probe that he’s often chided as a politically motivated investigation aimed at derailing his presidency.
He later said: “Open up the papers & documents without redaction? Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!”
Any talk of firing Sessions, 71, a was rejected by John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, who said doing so “would be bad for the country, it would be bad for the president, it would be bad for the Department of Justice for him to be forced out under these circumstances.”
Trump often takes aim at Sessions over the Russia investigation, including saying on Twitter that “Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now” and calling his own appointee “very weak,” beleaguered, and a disappointment.