May 30, 2018

Trump Renews Attacks Against Sessions Despite Report Mueller Is Investigating Just That

“I wish I did” appoint someone other than Jeff Sessions, he tweeted.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump is back to attacking his attorney general, publicly lamenting that he appointed Jeff Sessions to the post in the first place.

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that special counsel Robert Mueller has been looking into Trump’s long-simmering anger over Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation—a decision the president blames for his current mounting legal troubles.

One day later, Trump renewed his attacks against Sessions. In a series of tweets, Trump quoted House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) to support his argument that he shouldn’t have tapped Sessions, then a senator from Alabama, for the job: 

Trump notably did not quote Gowdy’s comments from the day before, in which he contradicted the president’s “spygate” conspiracy theory and argued that the FBI had acted appropriately in its handling of the Russia investigation.

Sessions’ announcement in March 2017 that he would be recusing himself from investigations into the presidential election has been a source of deep frustration for the president. (Sessions has appeared to violate the recusal on several occasions.) Trump’s public and private attacks against Sessions, along with his efforts to get Sessions to resign, could now potentially serve as evidence that the president attempted to obstruct the investigations into his campaign and Russia. His tweets Wednesday aren’t likely to help.

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