President calls for additional investigations from Sessions
Tweet urges AG to look at corruption on the ‘other side.’
President WASHINGTON —
Donald Trump pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday to investigate his perceived enemies, as the long-running feud between the men continued for another day.
Responding to Sessions’ declaration that he would not be influenced by politics, Trump tweeted that Sessions must “look into all of the corruption on the ‘other side,’ ” adding: “Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!”
The president’s tweets marked the second day of criticism of his attorney general — the latest in a dispute that has continued since Sessions recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.
Earlier this week, Trump, after the legal downfall of two former advisers, accused Sessions of failing to take control of the Justice Department. Sessions responded Thursday, saying that he and his department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”
Trump’s anger with Sessions was evident in an interview with Fox News in which the president also expressed frustration with the plea agreement his onetime legal fixer Michael Cohen cut with prosecutors, implicating Trump in a crime that Cohen admitted. Trump said it might be better if “flipping” — cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for more favorable treatment— were illegal because people cooperating with the government “just make up lies” to get a break from prosecutors.
Some of the issues Trump raised with Sessions on Friday have either already been examined or are in the process of being investigated.
He cited two former FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were sharply criticized in a Justice Department inspector general report in June for trading derogatory text messages about Trump. Strzok, who was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation once the texts were brought to his attention, was fired by the FBI this month. Page has resigned from the bureau.
Trump also mentioned the Russia probe. The inspector general is also investigating potential abuses in the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump and other Republicans have complained that the political opposition research used to support a wiretap application on a Trump associate was paid for by Democrats, something the inspector general is expected to look at.
Earlier he defended himself on Fox against talk of impeachment — “the market would crash ... everybody would be very poor” — tried to dissociate himself from Cohen and said anew that he hadn’t known in advance about Cohen’s hush money payments to silence women alleging sexual relationships with the celebrity businessman.
Trump’s latest criticisms of law enforcement came as he appeared increasingly vulnerable to long-running investigations after this week’s onetwo punch of Cohen’s plea deal and the conviction of Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.
Trump has spent more than a year publicly and privately venting over Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the federal Russia-collusion investigation because he’d worked on Trump’s campaign. Trump, who blames that decision for the eventual appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, told “Fox and Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt that Sessions “never took control of the Justice Department and it’s a sort of an incredible thing.”
“What kind of man is this?” Trump asked.
“You know the only reason I gave him the job? Because I felt loyalty, he was an original supporter,” Trump said of Sessions, an Alabama Republican who was the first senator to endorse Trump’s bid.