US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions fired by Donald Trump

US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions fired by Donald Trump

Washington: US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions was fired on Wednesday after unrelenting criticism from President Donald Trump over his recusal from an investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential race.


Sessions' departure was widely expected to come soon after Tuesday's congressional elections in which Republicans retained their majority in the Senate but lost control of the House of Representatives.



Trump announced Sessions' departure on Twitter. Sessions' chief-of-staff, Matthew Whitaker, will be acting attorney-general, Trump said on Twitter.

Sessions departs as the nation's top law enforcement officer while Special Counsel Robert Mueller, operating under the auspices of the Justice Department, pursues a wide-ranging Russia investigation that already has yielded a series of criminal charges against several of Trump's associates and has dogged his presidency.

US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions resigned at the request of Donald Trump.

US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions resigned at the request of Donald Trump.Credit:AP

The move left unclear the fate of Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and has overseen his probe from the beginning.

Whitaker, a former US attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, had served as Sessions's chief-of-staff since September 2017. Previously he was a conservative legal commentator who was critical of the scope of Mueller's probe.

In July 2017, he said during an interview on CNN that he could envision a scenario under which a temporary attorney-general doesn't fire Mueller but rather "just reduces his budget to so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt."

Acting US Attorney-General Matt Whitaker.

Acting US Attorney-General Matt Whitaker.Credit:AP

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that "protecting Mueller and his investigation is paramount."

Schumer says he finds the timing of Sessions' departure "very suspect." The New York Democrat says it would spark a "constitutional crisis" if Trump forced out Sessions as a "prelude" to ending or limiting Mueller's investigation.

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee says he wants "answers immediately" after Jeff Sessions was forced out as attorney-general by President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump.Credit:AP

Representative Jerry Nadler is in line to become the chairman of the Judiciary panel when Democrats take control of the House in January. He tweeted that "we will be holding people accountable."

Trump has long expressed frustration with Sessions over his recusal from the Justice Department's Russia investigation. Democrats worry that firing Sessions is a path to removing special counsel Robert Mueller and trying to end the probe.

Nadler says he wants to know why Trump is making the change and "who has authority over Special Counsel Mueller's investigation?"

The ouster of Sessions came just a day after midterm elections that handed control of the House to Democrats, dealing a major blow to Trump for the final two years of his term. Republicans preserved their hold on the Senate and increased their majority slightly, making it likelier that Trump will be able to confirm a replacement.


But House Democrats have made clear that they plan to use the subpoena power that will come with their majority to reopen the lower chamber's own investigation into the Russia matter.

The ouster of Sessions ended a partnership that soured almost from the start of the administration and degenerated into one of the most acrimonious public standoffs between a commander-in-chief and a senior Cabinet member in modern US history.

John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, called Sessions before his postelection news conference Wednesday to tell the attorney-general that Trump wanted him to step down, the administration official said. Trump, who did not speak with Sessions himself, then ducked questions about Sessions' fate at the news conference.

Sessions then had his letter, which was undated, delivered to the White House. "Dear Mr. President, at your request I am submitting my resignation," he wrote. He added, "Most importantly as my time as attorney-general, we have restored and upheld the rule of law," and thanked the president.

Trump announced the resignation and Whitaker's assignment on Twitter. "We thank Attorney-General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well!" he wrote. "A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date."

The president has regularly attacked the Justice Department and Sessions, blaming the attorney-general for the spectre of the special counsel investigation into ties between Trump's campaign and Russia.

Trump has said for months that he wished to replace Sessions, but lawmakers and administration officials believed that firing the attorney-general before the midterm elections would have had negative consequences for Republicans in tight races. So it came as little surprise when Sessions' resigned the day after the midterms were over.


"He took the job and then he said, 'I'm going to recuse myself.' I said, 'What kind of a man is this?'" Trump said this year in a Fox News interview. "I wanted to stay uninvolved. But when everybody sees what's going on in the Justice Department — I always put 'justice' now with quotes."

The deputy attorney-general, now Rosenstein, would normally be in line to become the acting attorney-general, but Trump has complained publicly about Rosenstein, too.

Installing Whitaker could clear the way for Trump to force out Mueller. To dismiss a special counsel, the President has to order the attorney-general or, in the case of a recusal, the deputy attorney-general, to carry it out. Rosenstein has said that he sees no justification to dismiss Mueller. Trump has already fired James Comey, the FBI director originally overseeing the investigation.

Whitaker's ascendance to the top of the Justice Department shows how much loyalty means to Trump. The president has long regarded Whitaker as his eyes and ears inside a department that he considers an enemy institution.

A former college football player and US attorney, Whitaker has been a frequent White House visitor and served as what one White House aide called a "balm" on the relationship between the President and the Justice Department.


In addition to Mueller's subpoena of the Trump Organisation, an umbrella company that encompasses Trump's business ventures, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for campaign finance fraud related to payments made on behalf of Trump. Those prosecutors have secured Cohen's cooperation in ongoing investigations, as well as that of Allen Weisselberg, a longtime accountant for the Trump family's real estate empire.


In February 2016, Sessions became the first sitting senator to endorse Trump's presidential campaign, and in the months leading up to the election, he became one of the candidate's closest national security advisers.

Only weeks after he was confirmed as the United States' top law enforcement officer, Sessions became ensnared in the Russia inquiries that have consumed Trump's presidency. He recused himself from overseeing the Justice Department investigation in March 2017, after revelations that he had failed to report encounters with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak of Russia during the 2016 campaign.

At the time, Sessions said there was nothing nefarious about those meetings, although he acknowledged that he "should have slowed down" and been more thoughtful in denying any contacts with Russian officials during his Senate confirmation process. His recusal was one of his first public acts as attorney-general.

Trump has long believed that those who have supported and defended him are most entitled to high-ranking positions in the federal government. Sessions, in Trump's mind, had betrayed that axiom.

Reuters, Bloomberg, New York Times