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Trump Admits ‘We Have an Attorney General,’ but Says He’s Disappointed in Him Trump Attacks Sessions and F.B.I., Citing Conspiracy Theories
(about 2 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump has escalated his drawn-out war with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the president’s view that Mr. Sessions failed to protect him from the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether any Trump associates conspired with it. WASHINGTON — President Trump excoriated on Wednesday his attorney general, the F.B.I., the special counsel and members of the intelligence community — citing conspiracy theories by conservatives even as he declared in a wide-ranging interview that he is “not a conspiratorial person.”
In his latest attack, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t have an attorney general,” an extraordinary statement even for a president who has called his attorney general weak and disloyal. “It’s very sad,” he continued in an interview on Tuesday with The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper. Mr. Trump used the Oval Office interview with The Hill newspaper to unleash some of his most deeply felt grievances against his critics, saying that one of the “crowning achievements” of his presidency will be exposing what he calls corruption among the people investigating his administration.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump reversed himself. “We have an attorney general,” he said, in response to reporters’ questions as he departed the White House to visit storm-struck North Carolina. “I’m disappointed in the attorney general for many reasons.” “We have tremendous support, by the way, to expose something that is truly a cancer in our country,” the president said of federal law enforcement officials without citing evidence. The remark was a striking rhetorical echo of 1973, when John Dean, the White House counsel, gravely told President Richard M. Nixon that the Watergate scandal was “a cancer within — close to the presidency.”
Asked whether he planned to fire Mr. Sessions, the president added, “We are looking at lots of different things.” By contrast, Mr. Trump compared his repeated trashing of F.B.I. investigators to congressional passage of tax cuts and the elimination of regulations by his administration, saying that “what we’ve done is a great service to the country, really.”
Mr. Trump has long publicly shamed the attorney general for recusing himself in March 2017 from overseeing the Russia investigation — a sprawling inquiry that has cast a shadow over Mr. Trump’s 20 months in office. Firing Mr. Sessions would be a way to change who has oversight of the investigation. The president’s antipathy toward the intelligence community and the Justice Department has been clear for most of his time in the White House. But Mr. Trump’s verbal assault on his own law enforcement agencies during Tuesday’s interview was remarkable even by his standards.
In his interview with The Hill, Mr. Trump said his disappointment in Mr. Sessions extended beyond the Russia investigation to immigration, an issue on which both men share a hard-line view. Mr. Trump made false assertions about the origins of the Russia investigation and the political makeup of its investigators, citing stories from Fox News personalities: “the great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful, great Jeanine Pirro.”
“I’m not happy at the border, I’m not happy with numerous things, not just this,” Mr. Trump said. The president escalated his drawn-out war with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over Mr. Trump’s assertion that Mr. Sessions had failed to protect him from the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether any Trump associates conspired with it.
Mr. Trump’s most recent attack on Mr. Sessions came days after he ordered the declassification of records related to the Russia investigation, an inquiry he has called corrupt, rigged and a witch hunt. “I don’t have an attorney general,” Mr. Trump declared — an extraordinary statement even for a president who has already called his attorney general weak and disloyal. “It’s very sad,” he continued.
Since Mr. Sessions stepped aside, that inquiry has been overseen by the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to lead it. Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that he expected Mr. Sessions to protect him from the investigation, which has resulted in convictions and guilty pleas from the president’s former aides. (On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump all but reversed himself. “We have an attorney general,” he said, in response to reporters’ questions as he departed the White House to visit storm-struck North Carolina. “I’m disappointed in the attorney general for many reasons.”)
Through an extended barrage of humiliating public statements and jabs, Mr. Trump has made clear that Mr. Sessions’s job is in peril and it is only a matter of when. At one point, Mr. Sessions, one of the president’s earliest prominent supporters, drafted a resignation letter. Mr. Trump also continued his barrage against Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation. He said Mr. Mueller was conducting a “fraudulent” inquiry and was “totally conflicted” because of what the president called a “nasty business transaction” between himself and Mr. Mueller years ago.
Mr. Sessions recused himself from all campaign-related inquiries to avoid a conflict of interest because of his role on the Trump campaign. Mr. Rosenstein has said he would not fire the special counsel. Mr. Trump did not say what the transaction was, though he has alleged a dispute over membership fees when Mr. Mueller left one of Mr. Trump’s golf clubs while he was F.B.I. director.
The president recently told Bloomberg News that he would not fire Mr. Sessions before the midterm elections in November. And should Mr. Trump decide to dismiss him, it is unlikely that the Senate would be able to confirm a replacement before then. And he indicated that he asked this week for the declassification of court documents, F.B.I. records and text messages in the Russia inquiry at the urging of members of Congress and “commentators that I respect” on cable news broadcasts.
Mr. Trump’s attacks on the typically independent justice system have increased as the Mueller investigation has implicated people tied to the president, who has long lamented that he was not to interfere in federal investigations. Last year, Mr. Trump told a conservative radio host that he was frustrated by this restraint. “I am not supposed to be involved with the F.B.I. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing,” Mr. Trump said. “I have had many people ask me to release them. Not that I didn’t like the idea, but I wanted to wait. I wanted to see what, you know, where it was all going,” Mr. Trump said.
In August, Mr. Sessions issued an unusual public statement in response to one of the president’s insults, and said he would not allow politics to interfere with investigations while he is attorney general. Law enforcement and intelligence officials must still vet the declassified materials and redact sensitive information. Declassified court documents and materials released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act often have redactions.
The president’s latest judgment about Mr. Sessions underscores his expectation that his attorney general serves as his personal attorney. The review of this latest declassification order is being given top priority because the request came from Mr. Trump, officials said. It is still underway and is primarily concerned with protecting sources and methods, a key concern of senior intelligence leaders, according to two officials briefed on the matter.
“The attorney general is a public servant,” David Kris, a founder of Culper Partners and a former assistant attorney general for national security, said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. “The attorney general is not the president’s personal lawyer, and the president would do well to remember that.” Should Mr. Trump reject the recommendations of the intelligence community, it could put Justice Department and F.B.I. officials into the uncomfortable position of having to oppose an action taken by the president or to reveal information that they believe undermines national security.
The president reserved some of his harshest words for Mr. Sessions. Asked by reporters on Wednesday whether he planned to fire the attorney general, the president said, “We are looking at lots of different things.”
Through an extended barrage of humiliating statements and jabs, Mr. Trump has made clear that Mr. Sessions’s job is in peril. At one point, Mr. Sessions, one of the president’s earliest prominent supporters, drafted a resignation letter.
The president recently told Bloomberg News that he would not fire Mr. Sessions before the midterm elections in November. And should Mr. Trump decide to dismiss him, it is unlikely that the Senate could confirm a replacement before then.
Mr. Trump has long publicly shamed the attorney general for recusing himself in March 2017 from overseeing the Russia investigation — a sprawling inquiry that has cast a shadow over Mr. Trump’s 20 months in office and resulted in convictions and guilty pleas from his former aides.
Mr. Trump already has personal lawyers — nearly a dozen — looking out for his personal and business interests in two federal investigations in Washington and New York. But firing Mr. Sessions would be a way to change who has oversight of the investigation.
In his interview with The Hill, Mr. Trump said his disappointment in Mr. Sessions extended to immigration, an issue on which both men share a hard-line view.
“I’m not happy at the border,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m not happy with numerous things.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.The Justice Department declined to comment.
Mr. Trump already has personal lawyers — nearly a dozen — looking out for his personal and business interests in two federal investigations in Washington and New York. In the interview with The Hill, Mr. Trump also said he regretted not firing his first F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, earlier. Appointed by President Barack Obama, Mr. Comey was less than four years into a 10-year term when Mr. Trump abruptly fired him in May 2017.
In his interview with The Hill, Mr. Trump also said that he regretted not firing his first F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, earlier. Mr. Comey was appointed by former President Barack Obama and was less than five years into a 10-year term when Mr. Trump abruptly fired him in May 2017. “If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Mr. Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention. Say, ‘I don’t want that guy.’ Or at least fired him the first day on the job.”
“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Mr. Trump told The Hill. The special counsel’s office is examining the firing of Mr. Comey as part of its inquiry into whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the investigation by removing the F.B.I. director.
The president’s reasons for firing Mr. Comey are part of a special counsel inquiry into whether the president intended to obstruct justice by removing the F.B.I. director, who was leading the investigation into some of Mr. Trump’s closest aides.