Trump expresses limited support for Sessions

Job is safe until elections in November but no assurances after that

President Donald Trump said Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ job is safe at least until the midterm elections in November.

In an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News Thursday, he was asked if he’d keep Sessions beyond November, but declined to comment.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Sessions for recusing himself in March 2017 from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then appointed Robert Mueller to conduct what’s become a wideranging probe, including whether people around Trump conspired with the Russians and whether the president sought to obstruct justice.

Trump also has ridiculed Sessions, a former Republican senator and early supporter of his presidential candidacy, as “weak” for failing to aggressively pursue Republican allegations of antiTrump bias in the Justice Department and FBI.

Sessions’ inability to “control” his department was “a regrettable thing,” Trump said in an interview last week with Fox News. Sessions responded in a defiant statement, saying, “While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

Trump’s comments Thursday were in keeping with the predictions of some key Republicans in Congress, who are now saying they expect the president to oust Sessions after the elections in November.