I could have appointed lots of good lawyers instead of Jeff Sessions – and ‘I WISH I DID!’ Trump again turns on his attorney general over recusing himself from the Russia probe
Among Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ first acts in office was to recuse himself from the federal probe of Russian interference with the 2016 election
Sessions had been a Trump campaign adviser, ethically precluding him from overseeing an investigation in which he might become a witness
Stepping aside opened the door for the Robert Mueller special counsel probe, which Democrats have portrayed as a threat to Trump’s presidency
The president vented Wednesday that he now wishes he had chosen someone else to lead the Justice Department
He quoted Rep. Trey Gowdy’s explanation of his frustration with Sessions for sidestepping ‘the most important case in the office’
By DAVID MARTOSKO
DAILYMAIL.COM
30 May 2018
Donald Trump vented at Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday morning, tweeting that he regretted choosing him to run the Justice Department last year.
Writing Wednesday on Twitter, Trump quoted Rep. Trey Gowdy from a appearance on Fox News: ‘There are lots of really good lawyers in the country, he could have picked somebody else!’
‘And I wish I did!’ the president added in an unusually stern public rebuke of a close political ally and key Cabinet official.
Among Sessions’ first acts in office was to recuse himself from what was then a slow-starting probe into Russian interference with the 2016 election. As a former Trump campaign adviser, legal ethics prohibited him from overseeing an investigation in which he might become a witness.
Trump has said both publicly and privately that the AG should have told him in advance that as a former campaign adviser himself, he would be ethically barred from overseeing the probe.
With Sessions out of the way and FBI Director James Comey fired, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller – whose slow moving, secretive investigation has given the president no end of heartburn.
Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on Fox that Trump ‘is expressing frustration that Attorney General Sessions should have shared these reasons for recusal before he took the job, not afterward.’
‘If I were the president and I picked someone to be the country’s chief law enforcement officer, and they told me later, ‘Oh by the way, I’m not going to be able to participate in the most important case in the office,’ I would be frustrated too.’
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