Trump Tears Into Jeff Sessions: “Scared Stiff and Missing in Action”

“Witch Hunt!”

Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump on Saturday publicly excoriated his attorney general in a series of tweets about the Russian investigation, describing Jeff Sessions as “scared stiff and Missing in Action.”

Sessions has recused himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. The probe is being overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired Special Counsel Robert Mueller after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last year.

Trump’s latest comments come 10 days after the president sparked a major controversy by criticizing Mueller and publicly stating that Sessions “should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now.” At the time, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insisted that Trump’s comments did not constitute obstruction of justice and that they were merely the president’s opinion, not orders for Sessions. But Saturday’s tweets make clear that Trump isn’t letting go of the matter and that he remains furious with Sessions for not intervening on his behalf.

Trump’s Saturday tweets are a reference to reports this week that Bruce Ohr, a Department of Justice official involved in the Russia probe in 2016, frequently communicated with Christopher Steele—the former British spy and author of the famous dossier—and with Glenn Simpson, whose firm Fusion GPS hired Steele on behalf of Democrats. Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr—who Trump for some reason referred as “his beautiful wife, Nelly”—worked for Fusion.

This was the second Twitter fusillade that Trump fired at the Justice Department Saturday. Earlier in the day, Trump threatened “to get involved” to force the FBI to hand over the text messages of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who Sessions fired earlier this year.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate