Attorney General Jeff Sessions (pictured) said Tuesday that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the DOJ's internal watchdog, would investigate Republicans' claims of wrongdoing. | Toya Sarno Jordan/Getty Images Sessions defends himself after Trump bashed him on Twitter Sessions said he would do his job with 'integrity and honor.'

Attorney General Jeff Sessions appeared to rebuff criticism from Donald Trump on Wednesday, vowing to do his job with "integrity and honor" after the president said it was "disgraceful" that Sessions asked an internal watchdog to investigate Republicans' claims of inappropriate behavior by FBI agents.

Trump's morning tweet blasted Sessions for directing Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate the FBI's activities surrounding surveillance of ex-campaign adviser Carter Page starting in late 2016.


"Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc," the president tweeted. "Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!"

In an unusual public response that did not mention Trump by name, Sessions rejected the attack.

"We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary," Sessions said in a statement. "As long as I am the Attorney General, 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."

The dispute — two years to the day after Sessions became the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump's upstart presidential campaign — involved only the latest public critique Trump has leveled at his attorney general. The president has repeatedly taken Sessions to task over his handling of the ongoing federal probe into Russian election interference and whether any Trump campaign aides were involved.

Trump has bristled, in particular, at Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the investigation. Shortly after that move, Trump demanded Sessions' resignation, but he later decided not to accept it at the urging of White House advisers.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The fresh fuel for Trump's ire stems from recent disclosures about the surveillance of Page, who at the time had left a role advising the Trump campaign and had drawn scrutiny for his ties to Russia. House Republicans, with the White House's backing, released a hotly contested memo earlier this month alleging federal officials misled a judge to obtain a warrant for the surveillance. Trump has since cited the memo to criticize top intelligence officials for their involvement in the probe into Russian election meddling.

On Saturday, the House panel released a Democratic counterpart to the GOP memo, which serves as a rebuttal to allegations of wrongdoing by intelligence officials. It says the FBI did not mislead the judge and that the FBI was investigating possible ties between Trump's team and Russia for weeks before it received a controversial dossier of information from a former British spy. Trump has dismissed the Democratic memo as a "nothing."

Sessions said Tuesday that Horowitz, the DOJ's internal watchdog, would investigate Republicans' claims of wrongdoing.

"We believe the Department of Justice must adhere to the high standards in the FISA court and, yes, it will be investigated," Sessions said Tuesday. "The inspector general will take that as one of the matters they’ll deal with."

Despite Trump's suggestion that Horowitz is an "Obama guy," Horowitz has been appointed to roles by presidents of both parties. He held Justice Department positions under four presidents: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama, who appointed him inspector general in 2012.

The younger Bush tapped Horowitz to serve a six-year term on the U.S. Sentencing Commission. As inspector general, Horowitz produced reports that at times shined an unflattering light on senior figures in the Obama administration. He also recently recovered thousands of text messages between two senior FBI officials who Republicans have accused of political bias in the investigation of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians.

A spokesperson for Horowitz did not respond to a request for comment on Trump's tweet.

Earlier this month, Sessions praised Horowitz and his efforts to dig into alleged misconduct.

"He’s been relentless and tough," the attorney general said in a recent interview on Fox News. "Much of what we know about this has been produced by his work and the Department of Justice."

One prominent GOP lawmaker rebuffed Trump's criticism on Wednesday.

"I have had a number of interactions with Inspector General Horowitz, including as recently as earlier this month," said House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). "He has been fair, fact-centric, and appropriately confidential with his work.”

Jamil Jaffer, an attorney in the Justice Department and at the White House counsel's office under President George W. Bush, called Trump's tweet "unproductive" and said the inspector general was the right person to investigate concerns about the surveillance process.

However, some Trump allies endorsed the president's latest attack on Sessions, with some painting Sessions as a kind of sleeper agent out to get Trump.

"I couldn’t agree more," Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. wrote on Twitter. "@USAGSessions must be part of the Bush/Romney/McCain Republican Establishment. He probably supported@realDonaldTrump early in campaign to hide who he really is. Or he could just be a coward."

It's unclear what Trump meant in his tweet about Horowitz's team being "late" with a report on alleged political bias in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server and related decisions made before the 2016 election. Horowitz said in November that it would likely be completed by March or April, a time frame consistent with what officials suggested for much of last year.

There's no indication what stage Horowitz is at with his review of the surveillance issues. It seems unlikely those matters could be thoroughly investigated by his office in time to be part of the upcoming report.

The president has publicly criticized a series of Sessions' decisions in office, with his handling of probes into Russian election interference efforts and Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state serving as central sticking points for the president.

Last Wednesday, the president questioned why Obama's administration was not under investigation, given that Moscow's attempts to meddle in U.S. elections began before Trump took office.

"Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation?" Trump tweeted. "Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!"

In July, Trump told The New York Times that Sessions' recusal from the Russia investigation was “very unfair to the president" and said he would have never tapped him to lead the Justice Department if he had known he would step aside from handling the probe.

After chiding the attorney general over the decision — which Sessions made because of his own involvement in the Trump campaign — Trump played coy on whether he would keep Sessions in his post, saying that "time will tell" about his future in the administration.

Trump also accused Sessions last year of having "has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes."

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: This post has been updated to correct the spelling of Jamil Jaffer's name