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Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out of his post Wednesday by President Trump, ending a turbulent tenure that began with Mr. Sessions as one of Mr. Trump’s closes badociates and ended with him facing repeated attacks from the president over the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The move follows months of Mr. Trump expressing his displeasure with Mr. Sessions in critical and sometimes harsh tweets. Even so, the rapidity of the move, coming just hours after polls closed in the midterm elections, suggested how eager Mr. Trump was for Mr. Sessions to depart.
Mr. Sessions made it clear in his resignation letter to Mr. Trump letter that the president had asked him to step down, saying he was submitting his resignation “at your request.”
Mr. Trump announced the move with a tweet saying that Matthew Whitaker, Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff, would take over as acting attorney general. Mr. Whitaker was expected to be sworn in later Wednesday.
Among the pressing questions presented by Mr. Sessions’s departure is the fate of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Mr. Trump has denied any collusion and called the Mueller probe a witch hunt.
The president’s anger at Mr. Sessions stemmed from the attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation because of his own prominent role in the Trump campaign.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been overseeing the inquiry in Mr. Sessions’s stead, but now Mr. Whitaker is expected to supervise the Russia probe. He has previously called for limits on the inquiry.
An administration official said Mr. Sessions would be out of the building by the end of the day Wednesday. It was White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not Mr. Trump, who called Mr. Sessions and sought the resignation letter, the official said.
President Trump responds to questions regarding the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, saying “I could have ended it anytime I wanted.” Photo: AP
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Trump, asked at a press conference about the status of Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein, had said, “I’d rather answer that at a little bit different time.”
Mr. Whitaker could serve in an acting capacity for 210 days, under the rules governing such appointments. Mr. Trump would have to nominate a permanent successor during that period.
Mr. Trump tweeted on Wednesday: “A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.”
The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Mr. Trump has weighed several candidates as potential successor for Mr. Sessions, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Transportation Department general counsel Steven Bradbury, former Attorney General Bill Barr, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Janice Rogers Brown, a retired appeals court judge from the District of Columbia Circuit.
In his resignation letter, Mr. Sessions wrote, “I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty to serve my country. I have done so to the best of my ability.”
Wednesday’s fast-moving developments likely bring to an end a lengthy public career in which Mr. Sessions served as a top law enforcement official in Alabama, a longtime Republican senator from that state, and U.S. attorney general, which he had described as a dream job. He was one of the first top Washington officials to endorse Mr. Trump, contrasting sharply with his later role as the butt of harsh criticism from the president.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, began looking ahead to the confirmation process for a new attorney general, which could be fiery, given the contentious issues surrounding the Justice Department and Mueller investigation.
“I look forward to working with President Trump to find a confirmable, worthy successor so that we can start a new chapter at the Department of Justice,” Mr. Graham said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), noted that Mr. Whitaker had been a television badyst who had been critical of the Mueller inquiry, and said he should recuse himself as Mr. Sessions did.
“Given his previous comments advocating defunding and imposing limitations on the Mueller investigation, Mr. Whitaker should recuse himself from its oversight for the duration of his time as acting attorney general,” Mr. Schumer said.
In August 2017, Mr. Whitaker wrote a column for CNN saying Mr. Rosenstein should order Mr. Mueller not to investigate financial matters related to the Trump Organization that have nothing to do with the 2016 election. “If he doesn’t, then Mueller’s investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition,” Mr. Whitaker wrote.
Republicans appear poised to expand their current 51-49 majority in the Senate as a result of Tuesday’s election, possibly making the confirmation process easier for a successor.
Any new nominee is certain to be closely scrutinized during the confirmation process and face questions about whether the Mueller probe would be reined in.
Mr. Sessions implemented Mr. Trump’s sweeping law-and-order agenda, but his tenure was dominated by the Mueller probe, which so far has netted the conviction of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, guilty pleas from other former Trump aides, and the indictment of many Russians, among other cases. A referral from Mr. Mueller also led Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to plead guilty to crimes that included campaign-finance violations during the 2016 campaign.
Write to Sadie Gurman at [email protected] and Aruna Viswanatha at [email protected]
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