Even though he continues to insult Attorney General Jeff Sessions on television and online, President Trump tells Bloomberg he does not plan to fire Sessions before November.
He would not say whether Sessions' job is safe beyond the midterms.
“I just would love to have him do a great job,” Trump said Thursday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News ...
Trump has repeatedly attacked Sessions in private and in public for recusing himself in March 2017 from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to conduct what’s become a wide-ranging probe, including whether people around Trump conspired with the Russians and whether the president sought to obstruct justice.
Asked whether he would comply with a subpoena from Mueller to answer questions, Trump said in the interview that “I’ll see what happens.”
“I view it differently. I view it as an illegal investigation” because “great scholars” have said that “there never should have been a special counsel,” the president said.
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Trump has tried to no avail to pressure Sessions to quit, which would open the way to appointing a successor who could oust Mueller or rein in his inquiry.
Sessions’s inability to “control” his department was “a regrettable thing,” Trump said in an interview last week with Fox News, adding that the Justice Department seems “to go after a lot of Republicans.”
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Trump’s comments Thursday were in keeping with the predictions of some key Republicans in Congress, who are now saying they expect the president to oust Sessions after the elections in November despite warning him in the past that the Senate wouldn’t muster the votes to confirm a successor.
Sessions Is Safe at Least Until November Elections, Trump Says (Bloomberg News)