President Donald Trump hinted in a Thursday interview that he may fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the November midterms.
“I just would love to have him do a great job,” the President said, adding that he made no promises about Sessions’ fate after the November elections.
During the Bloomberg interview, Trump once again criticized his attorney general for failing to rein in the special counsel’s “illegal investigation” into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The President also said he would love “to have him [Sessions] look at the other side,” calling on the Justice Department to investigate Democrat Hillary Clinton and the origins of the Russia probe. “I do question what is Jeff doing.”
The attorney general has often drawn the ire of President Trump for his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, which led to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel.
Further on in the interview, when asked if he would comply with a subpoena from the special counsel to sit for an interview, the President reiterated that he sees the investigation as illegal.
“I’ll see what happens. I view it differently. I view it as an illegal investigation,” he said, adding “there never should have been a special counsel.”
Trump’s criticism of Sessions has also been triggered by what the President believes is the attorney general’s failure to aggressively pursue Republican allegations of anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and FBI. As a result, Trump has been unsuccessfully pushing Session to quit.
Speculation among Congressional Republicans that the President will fire Sessions right after the midterms has gained momentum, more so now that their relationship has reached a point of no repair, Senator Lindsey Graham said.
“He is not the only man in the country that can be attorney general. He is a fine man. I’m not asking for him to be fired. But the relationship is not working,” Graham pointed out. “Is there somebody who is highly qualified that has the confidence of the President, and will also understand their job is to protect Mueller? Yes, I think we can find that person after the election if that is what the president wants.”
Be the first to comment