Trump again rips Sessions but may want him to stay
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump kept up his public pelting of Jeff Sessions on Wednesday even as the White House suggested that the attorney general should just press ahead with doing his job.
Trump’s days-long barrage of criticism of Sessions resumed with a morning tweet wondering why Sessions didn’t “replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe,” whom the president characterized as a friend of fired former FBI director James Comey and an ally of Hillary Clinton. That came just a day after Trump repeatedly expressed regret over choosing Sessions for the Cabinet position and refused to say whether he’d fire the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
“We will see what happens,” Trump said at a Tuesday news conference in the Rose Garden. “Time will tell. Time will tell.”
But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday afternoon of Sessions that the president “wants him to lead the department.”
“Look, you can be disappointed in someone and still want them to continue in their jobs,” she said during the daily briefing.
The attorney general visited the White House on Wednesday morning for a routine meeting that did not include the president, according to Sanders.
And the president’s intensifying criticism has fueled speculation that the attorney general may step down even if the president stops short of firing him. But several people close to the former Alabama senator have said that Sessions does not plan to quit.
McCabe has served as acting FBI director since Trump fired Comey in May. The president has been angry at McCabe for months, particularly after he highlighted the FBI’s work in the ongoing Russia probe and praised Comey during an appearance before Congress.
But Trump could have fired McCabe himself at any time from the acting director position. Trump’s pick to be the new FBI director, Christopher Wray, had his nomination voted out of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee last week.
Sessions and Trump have not spoken in recent days.
In private, Trump has told confidants that Sessions was disloyal in recusing himself from the federal investigation of Russia’s meddling in the presidential election and the possibility of collaboration with the Trump campaign. Sessions himself had met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before the election as a representative of the Trump campaign and thus stepped aside from the probe.