Trump forces out Sessions
Attorney general submits resignation at president’s ‘request’; Whitaker is acting AG
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out Wednesday after enduring more than a year of blistering and personal attacks from President Donald Trump, who inserted in his place a Republican Party loyalist with Democrat on the House authority to oversee the Judiciary Committee, remainder of the special said he wants “answers counsel’s Russia investigation. immediately” and “we will hold people accountable.”
The move has potentially ominous implications The resignation, in for special counsel a one-page letter to Robert Mueller’s probe, Trump, came one day given that the new acting after Republicans lost attorney general, control of the House Matthew Whitaker, until of Representatives and now Sessions’ chief of was the first of several staff, has questioned the expected post-midterms inquiry’s scope and spoke Cabinet and White House publicly before joining departures. Though Sessions the Justice Department was an early and about ways an attorney prominent campaign general could theoretically backer of Trump, his stymie the probe. departure letter lacked
Congressional Democrats, effusive praise for the concerned about president and made clear protecting Mueller, the resignation came “at called on Whitaker to your request.” recuse himself from “Since the day I was overseeing the investigation honored to be sworn in in its final but potentially as Attorney General of explosive stages. the United States, I came
That duty has belonged to work at the Department to Deputy Attorney General of Justice every Rod Rosenstein, who day determined to do my appointed Mueller. Rep. duty and serve my country,” Jerry Nadler, the top Sessions wrote.