Trump tears into sessions over Russia investigation

Sessions, who has absorbed blows from the White House since last year mostly in silence, responded with a rare statement defending his “integrity and honor.”

The back-and-forth, unthinkable in previous administrations, came during a week of unrest at the White House. As the president railed about the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, was stripped of his top-secret security clearance. One of Trump’s closest aides, Hope Hicks, announced that she will step down as communications director. And Trump’s former campaign chairman was back in court pleading not guilty to new charges.

The schism between Trump and his attorney general has become a persistent subplot of his administration, an almost Shakespearean rift between a president and one of his earliest and strongest supporters. Sessions was the first senator to back Trump’s candidacy but has fallen out of favor because the president wanted an attorney general who would protect him and investigate his political enemies.

The two rarely speak except in formal meetings, and both sides describe the relationship as broken. In between the president’s tweet and Sessions’ response on Wednesday, the two stood awkwardly yards apart at a Capitol memorial service honoring the Rev. Billy Graham. Trump later fumed in the Oval Office about Sessions’ statement, according to advisers, once again leaving the attorney general’s fate in question.

But the president’s options are constrained, advisers said, because he recognizes that he would have a difficult time winning Senate confirmation for a replacement. Sessions served there for 20 years, and his former colleagues have bristled at Trump’s attacks. Any dismissal of Sessions would be taken by Democrats and even some Republicans as an effort to seize control of the Russia investigation and could trigger a bipartisan backlash.

The exchange on Wednesday began when the president lashed out at Sessions for seeming to suggest that the Justice Department’s inspector general would look into Republican charges of misconduct in the opening stage of the Russia investigation rather than opening his own examination.

“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “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!”

Republicans have accused Justice Department and FBI officials of abusing their powers while President Barack Obama was still in office by using information from a dossier prepared by a former British spy paid by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. Officials did not fully inform the court that issues warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, of the origin of the information, Republicans complained. Democrats have called that a distortion and distraction.

The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, was appointed by Obama in 2012, but previously worked for the Justice Department under Republican and Democratic presidents. He has already been investigating how James B. Comey, the FBI director until Trump fired him last spring, handled the inquiry into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Sessions seemed to take umbrage at the president’s latest message. “We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary,” he said in his statement.

“As long as I am the attorney general,” he added, “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’ response, polite but pointed, was all the more striking because he had largely kept quiet after previous attacks by the president. Trump has never forgiven Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, a decision that helped lead to the appointment of Mueller. Trump has publicly called Sessions “weak” and said he would not have appointed him had he known Sessions would step aside.

His latest eruption was prompted by Sessions’ comment on Tuesday that if a FISA surveillance warrant was wrongfully obtained, the matter would be “investigated” by the department’s inspector general. His comment was interpreted as confirmation that the inspector general had opened a second official inquiry on top of the Comey review.

But Sessions only meant to reiterate what he said after a memo drafted by House Republicans was released alleging abuse of the FISA process. At the time, Sessions said he would “forward to appropriate DOJ components all information I receive from Congress regarding this.”

The nuance was lost on Trump, who among other things did not seem to understand that an attorney general cannot order an inspector general to investigate anything, only refer information.

“The president’s tweet reveals that he really doesn’t understand how the government works and how the Justice Department works,” said Michael Bromwich, a former department inspector general.

He added that the inspector general’s office has a reputation for professionalism. “It’s incredibly demoralizing to have the chief executive of the government not only not understand and appreciate what you do, but attack what you do on a constant basis,” Bromwich said.

Inspectors general at Cabinet agencies are kept separate to preserve their independence. Paul Light, a New York University professor and specialist on the offices, recalled that President Ronald Reagan fired all of the inspectors general but was forced by Congress to rehire some of them. “They have protections in statutes against arbitrary dismissal,” he said.

After Trump’s tweet, Horowitz, the inspector general, received support from Republicans, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that confirmed him.

“I have complete confidence in him and hope he is given the time, the resources and the independence to complete his work,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Several Republicans expressed dismay at the president’s continued campaign against Sessions. “It’s kind of mind-boggling that he would call out his own attorney general,” former Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said on Fox News.

Rep. Peter T. King of New York, also on Fox, expressed sympathy with Trump’s desire for a second investigation run by Sessions but added that the president should not berate him. “Jeff Sessions is loyal to the president and he’s one of the first to support him and he’s often in very difficult positions and I think he’s trying to reconcile as best as he can,” he said.

Michael W. McConnell, a former appellate judge now at Stanford Law School, said a president has every right to direct his attorney general.

“What raises eyebrows is the form and tone of the tweet, which appears to be a commentary on the attorney general’s decisions rather than an exercise of presidential supervisory authority,” he said. “Mr. Trump is the president. If he wants something done differently, he should order that it be done differently, with serious reflection, through proper channels, and in the proper form.”

Jamil Jaffer, a law professor at George Mason University and former associate White House counsel under President George W. Bush, said social media was not the best way to direct action by an attorney general. “The president has a lot of tools that are a lot more effective than putting the A.G. on blast on Twitter,” he said.

But Trump got support from other quarters. Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York and a dozen other Republicans sent a letter to Sessions on Wednesday urging him to appoint a special counsel to investigate the handling of Clinton’s case and the FISA warrant targeting Page.

Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, suggested that Sessions had never really supported Trump in the first place.

“@USAGSessions must be part of the Bush/Romney/McCain Republican Establishment, he wrote on Twitter. “He probably supported @realDonaldTrump early in campaign to hide who he really is. Or he could just be a coward.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Trump tears into sessions over Russia investigation

Trump excoriated Sessions for not ordering his own investigation into the handling of the Russia inquiry during its early months, calling his attorney general “DISGRACEFUL” in a lacerating Twitter post.

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