Despite criticism, Sessions pushes Trump’s agenda
Attorney general travels to El Salvador to discuss anti-gang strategies and immigration
“The attorney general has answered the president’s call.” Robert Hur, associate deputy attorney general
Breaking a weeklong silence after days of pointed criticism from President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday lamented that the president’s broadsides were “kind of hurtful’’ — but he intends to remain on the job.
“The president of the United States is a strong leader,’’ the attorney general said in an interview with Fox News from El Salvador, where he was discussing anti-gang strategies and immigration enforcement measures with government leaders.
“He (Trump) has had a lot of criticism and he’s steadfast determined to get his job done,” Sessions said. “And he wants all of us to do our jobs, and that’s what I intend to do.’’
The White House appeared to embrace Sessions’ mission to Central America on Thursday, hosting Justice and Department of Homeland Security officials at a press briefing to tout the administration’s efforts to curb the violent MS-13 gang.
“The attorney general has answered the president’s call, and we at the Justice Department are moving forward aggressively against MS-13,” said Associate Deputy Attorney General Robert Hur, chief adviser to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Hur said Sessions had traveled to the “nerve center” of MS-13 activity, and is “standing in solidarity with our partners in Central America.” Sessions also was expected to meet with President Salvador Sánchez Cerén and top law enforcement officials from across the region before delivering remarks at a police graduation ceremony.
Asked whether the president’s feud with Sessions was affecting law enforcement operations, Thomas Homan, acting director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), said: “Nothing ’s going to change the way we do our business.”
Earlier, making no mention of Trump’s recent attacks, the Justice Department announced Ses- sions’ trip, saying that “President Trump and Attorney General Sessions have made eradicating transnational criminal organizations like MS-13 a top priority of this administration.”
Questions about Sessions’ tenure as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer have been roiling in public since July 19, when Trump told The New York
Times that he would never have appointed the former Alabama senator had he known Sessions would disqualify himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.
Sessions’ recusal in March for failing to disclose election-year meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, followed by Trump’s abrupt dismissal of FBI Director James Comey in May, prompted the appointment of Robert Mueller as the Justice Department’s special counsel to direct the wide-ranging inquiry.
Mueller’s appointment and the inquiry’s expansion to include a deep examination of the Trump family’s finances have only served to stoke the president’s increasing anxiety.