When Donald Trump chose Jeff Sessions as his attorney general, it was to reward the senior U.S. Senator from Alabama for his long-standing loyalty and to help ensure the new president would have a reliable ally in the Justice Department to advance his immigration reform and drug policy agenda. Trump could not have known how useless Sessions would be.

Had Sessions never recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into potential Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the political situation in the country would be far more stable than it is today. More important, President Trump would have been able to get more done, rather than being distracted by these baseless claims.

But thanks to a scandal fabricated by the “permanent bipartisan fusion party” in Washington, D.C., Sessions chose to recuse himself from any potential investigations into alleged campaign collusion with Russia, thereby unleashing the forces of discord now eating away the foundations of our democratic institutions.

Simply put: #TheResistance in Washington set Sessions up. Trump’s enemies knew Sessions had two brief meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States in 2016. When Senate Democrats asked Sessions about his contacts with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing, Sessions denied having contacts with Russians during the campaign (he did not have contacts with them; he bumped into the ambassador a couple of times, including once at a public event at the Heritage Foundation). Alas, Sessions fell into the trap. Rather than remove himself from consideration for the attorney generalship, Sessions promised to recuse himself from any investigation involving the Russians and the presidential election.

Once Sessions recused himself, Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein became the head of the witch hunt . . . err, investigation into alleged ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. Here’s how Newsweek described Rosenstein last year when President Trump inexplicably nominated him for the number-two post at Justice:

Rosenstein, 52, is a longtime prosecutor who served under Republican and Democratic presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and is expected to be confirmed, as he neither identifies strongly with conservative politics nor has any particular affinity for the interests of the people surrounding the Trump organization [emphasis added].

Rosenstein called his former colleague, Robert Mueller, to act as “special counsel” in the probe. (Rosenstein and Mueller worked together during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.) This year-long investigation has produced no discernible proof of collusion. Not that absence of evidence would stop Mueller. His investigation has spread beyond the president and his inner circle during the 2016 campaign to include three decade’s worth of the Trump Organization’s business and financial transactions.

Someone has to step in and stop this extra-constitutional witch hunt!

It doesn’t matter how effective Sessions has been in reining in illegal immigration or enforcing national drug policies. Sessions abdicated his basic responsibilities as attorney general from day one; he is America’s first non-attorney-general-attorney-general!

What’s more, Sessions has left his boss exposed to vicious partisans pretending to be objective civil servants. Rosenstein and Mueller are not objective. These two men, like most of the Washington establishment, are seeking any means of deposing the president because Trump—and his voters—threaten their power. The fact that Mueller has moved the investigation beyond the claims of Russian meddling in 2016 and has decided to revisit the 1980s and ’90s gives the establishment’s game away.

Trump no doubt had some questionable business interactions during his 40-year career in New York City real estate. So? The point isn’t to unearth some old, corrupt deal so much as to get the president to lie under oath. That would give Congress all the reason it needs to begin impeachment proceedings. Remember, impeachment is a political and not a legal process. All one needs is to show some sort of presidential misdeed—coupled with the right amount of votes—to begin impeachment. And the Democrats might get enough votes after 2018 (and the congressional Republicans will happily move against Trump as well).

Mueller needs to go. The special counsel has already overstepped his bounds. Rosenstein needs to go with him. The president might want to rethink his support of Jeff “Recuse” Sessions, too.

Next, Trump should order investigations into Hillary Clinton’s scandalous behavior as well as the former Obama Administration’s misuse of FISA warrants to spy on the Trump team. If Sessions recuses himself from these investigations—or refuses to start these investigations entirely—then Trump should start looking for a new attorney general.

Enough playing footsie with swamp creatures. They are using bureaucratic chicanery to overturn the will of the American people. Trump had better fight back, or he’s going to lose everything.