Washington (CNN) A day after voters chose divided government by handing the House majority back to Democrats, President Donald Trump made the sort of I-do-what-feels-right-when-it-feels-right move that has become his hallmark over his past three years in political life: He fired Jeff Sessions.

And in so doing, Trump appears to have wrestled back operational control of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the possibility of collusion between Trump's campaign and a foreign power.

In firing Sessions -- by tweet, natch -- Trump announced that Matt Whitaker, Sessions' chief of staff at Justice, would become the acting Attorney General, a post he can hold for roughly 200 days because he has not been confirmed previously by the Senate.

But even having Whitaker in the job for the next 100 days could be enough for Trump. Whitaker has been openly critical of the breadth of Mueller's investigation and even mused on this chain of events in a 2017 interview with CNN

"I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced, it would recess appointment and that attorney general doesn't fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt."

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