Trump Shows Jeff Sessions the Door and More
Jeff Sessions has resigned as attorney general, ending a term that has been chained to the Mueller investigation.
If President Trump has his way, that investigation may soon be over as well. Shortly after tweeting a poll that shows the unpopularity of the investigation, Trump announced that Sessions was on the way out.
Sessions, in his own statement, said the president showed him the door. It's actually been open for some time.
Mr. Magoo
Trump choose Sessions to be his attorney general soon after he was elected. It didn't take long, however, before the president started to shame him.
He started by calling Sessions "Mr. Magoo" behind closed doors, and then embarrassing him publicly after special counsel Robert Mueller opened a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In May, Trump said he wished he hadn't named Sessions to head the Justice Department.
Of course, the official send-off was different. Trump tweeted:
....We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018
Mr. Mueller
The Washington Post sees the ouster as a harbinger of things to come for the special counsel. Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the timing of the announcement was " very suspect."
"Our paramount view is that any attorney general, whether this one or another one, should not be able to interfere with the Mueller investigation in any way," he told reporters.
The president named Matt Whitaker, Sessions' chief of staff, as acting attorney general. Whitaker has said to curtail the limits of the Mueller investigation.
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