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President Trump consulted Twitter to announce the appointment of an acting Attorney General, then referred Jeff Sessions in the following tweet.
UNITED STATES TODAY & # 39; HUI

President Attorney General Jeff Sessions was sacked Wednesday by Donald Trump after a year of intense surveillance by the White House.

The release of the sessions, a forced resignation by Trump, had been expected for weeks after Trump's attacks following the decision of his Attorney General to recuse himself from the Justice Department's investigation into the interference of Russia in the 2016 election.

Trump has also appointed Matthew Whitaker, chief of staff of the Attorney General, as Acting Attorney General.

The start of the sessions took place after a lively Trump press conference a day after the mid-term elections in which the Democrats took over Parliament. Here is what we know now.

Why did Trump oust the sessions?

Although Sessions was one of Trump's early supporters, the President focused on laser targeting sessions, even going so far as to completely disassociate sessions from the administration. .

More: Trump fires Attorney General Jeff Sessions and names Matthew Whitaker interim replacement

"I do not have a Attorney General, it's very sad," Trump said in an interview with Hill.TV in September. "I'm not happy at the border, I'm not happy about many things, not just about that."

Trump attacked Sessions during interviews, tweets and press conferences as "besieged" and often expressing a "disappointment" in his Attorney General.

What does this mean for the investigation of Russia and Robert Mueller?

The dismissal of Sessions immediately entrusts the monitoring of the ongoing investigation to his acting successor, Whitaker, who has already requested that the investigation be drastically reduced.

The sessions recused themselves from the investigation in March 2017 for failing to disclose election year meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

For example, the brutal dismissal of FBI director James Comey by Trump in May motivated the appointment of former FBI director Robert Mueller as special advisor to the Department of Justice to lead the FBI. 'investigation.

With Whitaker at the helm, we did not know right away what that meant for Mueller's future.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had overseen the investigation, was at the White House on Wednesday for what the administration officials described as a meeting scheduled in advance.

Who is acting AG Matthew Whitaker?

Whitaker, a former Iowa football player who had been promoted to the rank of federal prosecutor and chief of staff of the Department of Justice, had been considering for various jobs within the Trump administration.

Among the possible positions of Whitaker, there was the post # 2 at Justice or the advisor at the White House. Whitaker was chief of staff of the sessions since October 2017.

More: Who is Matthew Whitaker? Football star Hawkeye and federal prosecutor become Acting Attorney General

Whitaker, in an article published in 2017 by CNN before joining the Department of Justice, asked Rosenstein to "limit the scope" of Mueller's investigation and to block the review of the family's finances of Trump.

Whitaker also wrote an article for USA TODAY on July 5, 2016, in which he claimed he allegedly accused Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidate of the same year, for handling confidential documents as secretary of the board. 39; State on a private mail server.

How did Sessions take the news?

In a letter of resignation sent to the President, Sessions thanked Trump "for the opportunity" to be Attorney General. He also listed what he saw as his accomplishments during his tenure.

"Since the day I had the honor of being sworn in as Attorney General of the United States, I came to work at the Department of Justice every day, determined to do my duty and to serve my country, "wrote Sessions. "I did my best, working to support the basic legal processes on which justice is based."

More: White House departures: who was fired and resigned

What are the Democrats saying?

The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., promised to protect Mueller, claiming that it would create a constitutional crisis if the departure of the Session was the prelude to the closure of Mueller's investigation, or to its great limitation.

"I find the timing is very suspicious," said Schumer.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of D-Calif., Said the Trump movement was a clear effort to derail Mueller's probe.

Contributors: Kevin Johnson, Bart Jansen and Maureen Groppe

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