While President Trump lashes out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Twitter once again, The Washington Post reports Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into the president's intentions last summer and whether he was trying to get rid of his AG in an attempt to gain control over the Russia probe.
In recent months, Mueller’s team has questioned witnesses in detail about Trump’s private comments and state of mind in late July and early August of last year, around the time he issued a series of tweets belittling his “beleaguered” attorney general, these people said. The thrust of the questions was to determine whether the president’s goal was to oust Sessions in order to pick a replacement who would exercise control over the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump associates during the 2016 election, these people said.
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Every Cabinet official can be fired by the president at any time for any reason. If Mueller’s team sought to make Trump’s efforts to oust the attorney general part of a pattern of attempted obstruction, they would have to offer evidence showing he had a corrupt motive to doing so — such as changing the direction of the Russia probe.
On Wednesday morning, the president went after Sessions on Twitter for the choice to have the DOJ Inspector General look into House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' (R-CA) allegations of FISA court abuse.
Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2018
Sessions responded.
WaPo:
“As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution,’’ Sessions said in the statement.
The Daily Beast spoke with former inspectors general to get their professional take on Sessions' decision, and they said Sessions made the right call.
“The request to do an investigation like this is well within the jurisdiction of the IG’s office and frankly, I think, is something the IG ought to do,” Michael Bromwich, formerly the Justice Department’s Inspector General, told The Daily Beast. “I think the IG is uniquely qualified to do it. I don’t know of any other entity within the DOJ that could do it as credibly.”
Joel Brenner, formerly the IG for the National Security Agency, said an investigation run by the DoJ’s inspector general’s office could set the record straight –– and in a way that might be unhelpful for Nunes.
“The Nunes report is so transparently twisted that I’d want to review the evidence... and I’d want to do it on my own initiative, not because I was ordered to do it,” he told The Daily Beast.
Mueller investigation examining Trump’s apparent efforts to oust Sessions in July (WaPo)
Ex-Watchdogs Side With Jeff Sessions After Donald Trump Calls Him ‘DISGRACEFUL!’ (Daily Beast)