US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been fired by President Donald Trump. Mr Trump had criticised his top law official for months, mainly over his refusal to oversee the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in favour of Mr Trump's election in 2016.
In an August interview Trump complained that Jeff Sessions "never took control of the Justice Department", to which Sessions in a rare response said "While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. ...
One theory holds that Sessions’s extreme fealty to the president was, in fact, what prolonged his problems with him. Sessions was willing to endure Trump’s personal derision in order to realize their shared vision for the country.
He's also fought legal immigration, including guest worker programs for immigrants in the country illegally and visa programs for foreign workers in science, math and high-tech ... 'Legal immigration is the primary source of low-wage immigration into the United States,' Sessions argued in a 2015 Washington Post op-ed. '...
Sessions was an early supporter of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign; he was nominated by Trump for the post of U.S. attorney general. He was confirmed and sworn in as attorney general in February 2017.
Matthew WhitakerPreceded byJeff SessionsSucceeded byWilliam BarrChief of Staff to the United States Attorney GeneralIn office September 22, 2017 – November 7, 201822 more rows
Whitaker served as Acting Attorney General from November 2018 to February 2019. Prior to becoming Acting Attorney General, Mr. Whitaker served as Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa on June 15, 2004 by President George W.
Attorney General is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule, thus earning a salary of US$221,400, as of January 2021.
Donald B. AyerWilliam Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the 77th and 85th United States attorney general in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump....William BarrPresidentGeorge H. W. BushPreceded byDonald B. AyerSucceeded byGeorge J. Terwilliger III31 more rows
Merrick GarlandUnited States / Attorney generalMerrick Brian Garland is an American lawyer and jurist serving as the 86th United States attorney general beginning in March 2021. He served as a circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021. Wikipedia
76 years (June 14, 1946)Donald Trump / Age
5′ 5″Jeff Sessions / Height
House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said: "It is impossible to read Attorney General Sessions' firing as anything other than another blatant attempt by President Trump to undermine & end Special Counsel Mueller's investigation."
Mr Trump has repeatedly pilloried his top law enforcement official since Mr Sessions stepped aside from the Russia inquiry in March 2017.
Matthew Whitaker can now assume control of the Mueller inquiry, which has been under the control of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein until now.
Mr Trump had criticised his top law official for months, mainly over his refusal to oversee the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in favour of Mr Trump's election in 2016.
It was the deputy attorney general who appointed Mr Mueller to lead the Russia inquiry, after Mr Trump fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017.
Democrats were outraged by the attorney general's removal, with Senate leader Mr Schumer said protecting the Mueller investigation was "paramount" in light of the move.
Anyone who attempts to interfere with or obstruct the Mueller inquiry must be held accountable. This is a red line. We are a nation of laws and norms not subject to the self interested actions of one man.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was born on 24 December 1946, in Selma, Alabama USA, and is a politician and lawyer, who is now best known for serving as the 84th Attorney General of the United States since 2017. Besides that, he was a senator for Alabama over the course of two decades from 1997, as a member of the Republican Party.
President Donald J. Trump announced his intention to nominate Mr. Sessions on November 18, 2016, and he was sworn in as the 84th Attorney General of the United States by Michael R. Pence on February 9, 2017.
On March 27, 2017, Sessions told reporters that sanctuary cities failing to comply with policies of the Trump administration would lose federal funding, and cited the shooting of Kathryn Steinle as an example of an illegal immigrant committing a heinous crime.
Trump would later state in an August 22, 2018 interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that the only reason he nominated Sessions was because Sessions was an original supporter during his presidential campaign. The nomination engendered support and opposition from various groups and individuals. He was introduced by Senator Susan Collins from Maine who said, "He's a decent individual with a strong commitment to the rule of law. He's a leader of integrity. I think the attacks against him are not well founded and are unfair." More than 1,400 law school professors wrote a letter urging the Senate to reject the nomination. A group of black pastors rallied in support of Sessions in advance of his confirmation hearing; his nomination was supported by Gerald A. Reynolds, an African American former chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Six NAACP activists, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, were arrested at a January 2017 sit-in protesting the nomination.
Sessions opposed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and arming the Syrian rebels. As Attorney General, he reportedly advised President Trump against increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
Sessions replied that he was "not aware of any of those activities" and said "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have – did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it."
Sessions rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. He has voted in favor of legislation that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. He has voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Sessions is a proponent of nuclear power.
Sessions told me he was moved by the chance to act on his and Trump’s shared belief that the police were “demoralized” during the Obama years. “I said, ‘We’re going to embrace this as our mission, we’re going to back the police and we’re going to reduce crime.’” He began laying the groundwork for a zero-tolerance policy for illegal immigration, a crackdown on MS-13 gang members and a rollback of the civil rights agenda advanced through the Justice Department during the Obama years. But these efforts were still in their infancy when, in March 2017, he made his fateful decision.
There he was in early 2016, beaming from the campaign stage in the Huntsville, Ala., suburb of Madison before a crowd of more than 10,000, Trump’s prized opening act, extolling the inception of a “movement.”.
In the past four months, meanwhile, Trump and Tuberville have spoken frequently by phone, sometimes as often as twice a week. In mid-June, Tuberville joined the president on Air Force One when it landed in Dallas. When we spoke at Ruby Tuesday, Sessions acknowledged Tuberville’s appeal.
Sessions was willing to endure Trump’s personal derision in order to realize their shared vision for the country. Trump, on the other hand, seemed unnerved that anyone’s policy goals could outweigh their pride. And so with every sunny response to his insults, Trump’s disdain for Sessions deepened. “So many people in the White House thought the way to build a better relationship with Trump was just to agree with him on everything and praise him to the hilt and be sycophantic and plug those gaping insecurities that fuel his narcissism,” the first former White House official said. “When the reality is that once you actually give in to him like that, he detests you for it.” (The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
When he did, Lott gave Sessions a copy of a visual aid he put together several years earlier called “The Wheel of Fortune.” The wheel, Lott told me, had a series of “spokes,” all of which represent things you might do upon leaving politics. You could join a law firm! Give speeches! Write a book! Many lawmakers became professors or sat on corporate boards. Lott walked Sessions through the pros and cons of each. And so Sessions left K Street that day encouraged anew by the wide world before him.
During his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a black assistant U.S. attorney testified that Sessions had once called him “boy” (which Sessions denied) and said the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found out they smoked pot” (which Sessions said was a joke).
Here, then, was the central paradox of Sessions’s plight. In ethos and in substance, Sessions had long harbored the presentiments of Trumpism. On immigration, trade and policing, the dusted-off rhetoric of “law and order,” his stamp on the president’s administration remains indelible. And yet no figure has been more totally cast out of Trump’s orbit.
He was confirmed and sworn in as Attorney General in February 2017. In his confirmation hearings, Sessions stated under oath that he did not have contact with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign and that he was unaware of any contact between Trump campaign members and Russian officials.
Sessions was elected Attorney General of Alabama in November 1994, unseating incumbent Democrat Jimmy Evans with 57% of the vote. The harsh criticism he had received from Senator Edward Kennedy, who called him a "throw-back to a shameful era" and a "disgrace", was considered to have won him the support of Alabama conservatives.
On March 27, 2017, Sessions told reporters that sanctuary cities failing to comply with policies of the Trump administration would lose federal funding, and cited the shooting of Kathryn Steinle as an example of an illegal immigrant committing a heinous crime.
Trump would later state in an August 22, 2018 interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that the only reason he nominated Sessions was because Sessions was an original supporter during his presidential campaign. The nomination engendered support and opposition from various groups and individuals. He was introduced by Senator Susan Collins from Maine who said, "He's a decent individual with a strong commitment to the rule of law. He's a leader of integrity. I think the attacks against him are not well founded and are unfair." More than 1,400 law school professors wrote a letter urging the Senate to reject the nomination. A group of black pastors rallied in support of Sessions in advance of his confirmation hearing; his nomination was supported by Gerald A. Reynolds, an African American former chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Six NAACP activists, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, were arrested at a January 2017 sit-in protesting the nomination.
Sessions replied that he was "not aware of any of those activities" and said "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have – did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it."
In 2013, Sessions sent a letter to National Endowment for the Humanities enquiring why the foundation funded projects that he deemed frivolous. He also criticized the foundation for distributing books related to Islam to hundreds of U.S. libraries, saying "Using taxpayer dollars to fund education program grant questions that are very indefinite or in an effort to seemingly use Federal funds on behalf of just one religion, does not on its face appear to be the appropriate means to establish confidence in the American people that NEH expenditures are wise."
Sessions and his wife Mary have three children and as of March 2020, ten grandchildren. The family attends a United Methodist church. Specifically, Jeff and Mary Sessions are members of the Ashland Place United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama; Jeff Sessions has taught Sunday school there.