{UAH} Pojim/Ocen/Allan ....et al: Sessions resigns to Trump 'at your request'

Sessions resigns to Trump 'at your request'

Hunter Walker 31 minutes ago

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Jeff Sessions listens as President Trump speaks before he is sworn in as attorney general, Feb. 9, 2017. (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Trump abruptly announced on Twitter Wednesday that Jeff Sessions is no longer the U.S. attorney general.

"We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well," Trump tweeted, adding: "We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date."

At the top of his resignation letter to Trump, Sessions noted he was doing so at the president's request.

 

 

Sessions' departure came within hours of a lengthy White House press conference where Trump suggested some major staff changes would be coming soon.

When pressed, the president declined to say what those changes might be. He framed potential turnover as standard operating procedure in the wake of the end of an election cycle.

Trump's White House has seen extensive turbulence with multiple high level departures. Sessions has long been seen as having a questionable future with the White House since Trump has repeatedly expressed disapproval with the attorney general's decision to recuse himself from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

Sessions's recusal stems from the fact he was an active supporter of Trump's 2016 campaign. The Mueller probe is examining whether Trump's campaign team colluded with Russian efforts to interfere in that presidential race. Sessions' recusal prevented him from stopping the probe, which Trump has attacked as an unfair "witch hunt."

Matthew Whitaker, left, and Jeff Sessions. (Photos: Charlie Neibergall/AP, Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Whitaker, on the other hand, has expressed frustration with Mueller's probe.

In a CNN op-ed published last year, Whitaker suggested the investigation had gone too far amid reports the special counsel was looking into financial records relating to the Trump Organization.

"Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing," Whitaker wrote. "This information is deeply concerning to me. It does not take a lawyer or even a former federal prosecutor like myself to conclude that investigating Donald Trump's finances or his family's finances falls completely outside of the realm of his 2016 campaign and allegations that the campaign coordinated with the Russian government or anyone else. That goes beyond the scope of the appointment of the special counsel."