Sessions to launch DOJ probe into leaks, Scaramucci says

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will launch a Department of Justice investigation into the government leaks that have frustrated President Donald Trump through his first six months in office, newly named White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci announced Wednesday morning.

Trump has grown increasingly critical of his attorney general in recent days, characterizing him as beleaguered in a post to Twitter earlier this week and telling reporters at a news conference Tuesday that Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from investigations related to last year’s presidential election was “unfair to the presidency.”


At that same news conference, Trump complained that Sessions should get tougher on the leaks, many of them damaging to the president, that have seemingly emanated from the Justice Department and various intelligence agencies. Wednesday morning, Scaramucci confirmed that the attorney general intends to do just that.

“Yeah. I think he has got a plan that he’s put together, and at some point, I don’t know if it will be today, tomorrow or next week, he will announce that plan,” Scaramucci told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” in response to a question about reports that Sessions plans to launch a leak investigation. “Listen, we have to crack down on leaks on a number of different fronts.”

Citing unnamed sources, The Washington Post reported Tuesday evening that Sessions intends to launch multiple investigations into leaks of sensitive intelligence information that appeared in media reports. Fox News, also citing an unnamed official, published a similar report Wednesday morning.

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A leak investigation launched by Sessions would come at a low point for the attorney general’s relationship with the president, marked Tuesday by Trump’s remark that “time will tell” as to whether Sessions would remain in his job. The former Alabama senator was among Trump’s earliest supporters on Capitol Hill and one of his highest-profile surrogates throughout last year’s campaign.

But far from undercutting his attorney general, Scaramucci said Wednesday that Trump’s public criticism of Sessions was evidence that the president’s forthrightness has been a shock to Washington’s system. Individuals who work for Trump “have to have a tough exoskeleton,” Scaramucci said, because the president is frank and prefers that those working with him be “deferentially honest.”

Asked directly whether Trump wants a new attorney general, Scaramucci said “I don’t know the answer to that.”

“What the president is trying to do, he’s signaling to people that ‘I need your loyalty, I need your advocacy. If you are doing things I don’t like, I’m going to express that.’ He’s not a Washingtonian. We are both New Yorkers,” Scaramucci said. “What I don’t like about Washington is people do not let you know how they feel. They’re very nice to your face and then they take a shiv or a machete and they stab it in your back. I don’t like it. I’m a Wall Street guy, and I’m more of a front-stabbing person and I would rather tell people directly how I feel about things than this sort of nonsense.”

