US president tweets that Jeff Sessions should ‘look into all of the corruption’ by political foes

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old



Donald Trump hit back at the US attorney general on Friday, pressing him to focus his attention on Trump’s long list of foes and critics as the hostility between the president and the nation’s top law enforcer continues to grow.

Jeff Sessions hits back at Trump criticism: 'DoJ won't be improperly influenced" Read more

In his latest spat with Jeff Sessions, Trump – who is increasingly embattled after being implicated in criminal behaviour as part of a guilty plea by his former lawyer Michael Cohen this week – tweeted that Sessions should investigate alleged “corruption” by his political enemies.

“Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!” the president wrote.

Trump’s tweets reference the former FBI figures James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, justice department staffer Bruce Ohr, and Steele, the author of a dossier of claims about Trump, adding up to a list of figures who have crossed the president in various ways during Mueller’s investigation. Some of the issues Trump raised have either already been examined or are currently being investigated.

Trump’s early morning volley of tweets, Trump came in response to a remark Sessions had made on Thursday asserting the Department of Justice’s independence from political considerations, specifically the pressure applied almost daily by Trump, his aides and legal counsel.

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“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in,” he said in a statement, responding to Trump’s criticisms following a dramatic day which saw Cohen make his plea deal, and the conviction of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, on fraud charges.

“While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,” Sessions tweeted, in an unusually public rebuke to the president.

Trump’s retort to Sessions’s stand comes amid increasing tensions between the White House and the department that authorized special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, which had a hand in bringing the charges against both Cohen and Manafort.

On Thursday, Trump used an interview on Fox & Friends to lament that he had installed an attorney general who “never took control of the justice department” and argued that it “almost ought to be illegal” for “flippers” to get plea deals in exchange for testimony.

The remarks were clearly aimed at his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to a series of campaign contribution violations stemming from a scheme to cover up Trump’s alleged affairs with Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, and former Playmate Karen McDougal.

In the Fox interview, Trump reasserted his support for Manafort, amid reports that he had asked his legal counsel about the viability of a presidential pardon for the former aide.

According to Trump’s personal attorney, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump agreed that the issue of offering pardons to his former campaign staff or others should at least wait until Mueller had concluded his investigation.

“He said yes,” Giuliani said. “He agreed with us.”

Sessions, a former US senator and early supporter of Trump’s presidential bid, first drew the president’s ire when he recused himself in March 2017 from the oversight of Mueller’s inquiry. Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a “witch-hunt”.

In the Fox interview, Trump repeated his complaint that Sessions should not have recused himself from Russia-related matters. “He took the job and then he said: ‘I’m going to recuse myself,’” Trump said. “I said: ‘What kind of a man is this?’

“You know the only reason I gave him the job? Because I felt loyalty, he was an original supporter,” Trump said.

On Thursday, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who is both close to Trump and a defender of Sessions, said he believed Trump would appoint a new attorney general but should wait until after the 6 November midterm elections.

A source close to Trump expressed doubt that Trump would fire Sessions before the elections but said Graham’s view that Sessions could go after the voting is a likely scenario.

Sessions has made clear to associates that he has no intention of leaving his job voluntarily despite Trump’s constant criticism.

The open hostility between the president and the criminal justice system comes as Giuliani is believed to be finalising terms for a sit-down interview between the president and Mueller’s investigators.