Jeff Sessions, U.S. Attorney General, requested the resignations of 46 U.S. Attorneys on March 10, 2017. On March 10, 2017, Jeff Sessions, who was appointed United States Attorney General by President Donald Trump, requested the resignations of 46 United States Attorneys. Some resignations were declined by Sessions or Trump.
Nov 08, 2018 · 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 ...
Jun 20, 2020 · Berman was appointed to be the interim United States attorney in Manhattan by former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, although Mr. …
Jun 30, 2020 · F or several months before he fired Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump had telegraphed that his attorney general would leave following the 2018 midterm elections. Still, Justice Department aides were ...
United States Attorney General | |
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Succession | Seventh |
Deputy | United States Deputy Attorney General |
Salary | Executive Schedule, Level I |
Website | www.justice.gov |
Jeff Sessions | |
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In office February 9, 2017 – November 7, 2018 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Deputy | Dana Boente (acting) Rod Rosenstein |
Preceded by | Loretta Lynch |
Matthew Whitaker | |
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Preceded by | Jeff Sessions |
Succeeded by | William Barr |
Chief of Staff to the United States Attorney General | |
In office September 22, 2017 – November 7, 2018 |
William Barr | |
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President | George H. W. Bush |
Preceded by | Donald B. Ayer |
Succeeded by | George J. Terwilliger III |
United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel |
President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, replacing the head of the Department of Justice with his chief of staff Matthew G. Whitaker.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wished Sessions well after learning of his resignation Wednesday afternoon.
Whitaker in a statement called Sessions as a dedicated public servant and said he is committed to leading the Justice Department with the "highest ethical standards.". "It is a true honor that the President has confidence in my ability to lead the Department of Justice as Acting Attorney General. I am committed to leading a fair Department with ...
Sessions left the Justice Department Wednesday afternoon after meeting with staff. About 150 people, including many longtime career attorneys, clapped as he walked out, gave him a thumbs up, and shook hands.
Sessions also sent more judges and prosecutors to the southern border to help with processing illegal border crossers. AP. In his resignation letter, Sessions described restoring and upholding the "rule of law" as his most important legacy as attorney general.
The president's priorities and Sessions' mirrored each other. Both tough on immigration, the opioid crisis, and crime, both men have a pro-law enforcement perspective.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions waits to speak at the Eighth Judicial District Conference, Aug. 17, 2018, in Des Moines, Iowa. Following Sessions' resignation, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Whitaker to recuse himself from the probe. "Given his previous comments advocating defunding and imposing limitations on ...
Preet Bharara said he was fired after refusing to submit his resignation.
National Review pointed out that Janet Reno began her tenure as President Bill Clinton 's attorney general in March 1993 by firing U.S. attorneys for 93 of the 94 federal districts, this being more than twice as many as Trump attorney general Sessions fired on Friday.
In his resignation statement, Capers wrote, "This afternoon, I was instructed to resign my position as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, effective March 10, 2017. It has been my greatest honor to serve my country, New York City and the people of this district for almost 14 years, with the last 17 months serving as United States Attorney."
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 Sessions voluntarily removed himself from the probe after Democrats accused him of failing to disclose contacts with the Russian ambassador during his Senate confirmation hearing.
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.
In a resignation letter, Mr Sessions - a former Alabama senator who was an early supporter of Mr Trump - made clear the decision to go was not his own.
The president cannot directly fire the special counsel, whose investigation Mr Trump has repeatedly decried as a witch hunt. But Mr Sessions's replacement will have the power to fire Mr Mueller or end the inquiry.
It was in his hour of darkness, after his firing, that Sessions received a call from Trent Lott. The former Republican senator from Mississippi knew something about unceremonious downfalls, his tenure as Senate majority leader cut short in 2002 following a toast to the past presidential aspirations of one Strom Thurmond. (“If the rest of the country” had voted for Thurmond in 1948, when he ran on the pro-segregation Dixiecrat ticket, Lott said, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”) But Lott had rebounded with ease, slinking back into Senate leadership before exiting politics on his own terms and settling into the life of a lobbyist. He had since acted as a kind of life coach for Senate friends — Kit Bond of Missouri, the late Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania — who were considering what might come after public service, and he suggested Sessions come by his office for a talk.
The former attorney general is fighting for his political life in Alabama’s Sen ate race, in the shadow of a president who still despises him.
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.)
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).
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.
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.
Jeff Sessions in March 2017 announcing his recusal from any investigations into the 2016 presidential election.
But Republicans in Congress appeared less concerned by the president’s move. Senator Lindsey Graham , Republican of South Carolina, who said in 2017 that there would be “holy hell to pay” if Mr. Trump fired his attorney general, offered no criticism of the president on Wednesday. Image.
WASHINGTON — President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, replacing him with a loyalist who has echoed the president’s complaints about the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference and will now take charge of the inquiry.
Whitaker would be in a position to impede or undermine the investigation or to block Mr. Mueller from delivering a final report on whether Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 campaign, and whether the president tried to cover it up.
The firing of Mr. Sessions came a day after mid term elections that handed control of the House to Democrats, dealing a major blow to Mr. Trump for the final two years of his term. Republicans preserved their hold on the Senate and increased their majority slightly, making it likelier that Mr. Trump would be able to confirm a replacement.
Mr. Trump also publicly badgered Mr. Sessions to open investigations into his defeated rival , Hillary Clinton, and other Democrats. Critics from both parties said the president was shredding the traditional independence of the law enforcement agencies in seeking what appeared to be politically motivated prosecutions.
Mr. Whitaker’s ascendance to the top of the Justice Department shows how much loyalty means to Mr. Trump. The president has long regarded Mr. Whitaker as his eyes and ears inside a department that he considers an enemy institution.
Whitaker also remove himself from taking charge of the inquiry, citing potential conflicts of interest, including his criticisms of the Mueller investigation, as well as his connections to a witness in that investigation, Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign aide. In 2014, Mr. Whitaker was the chairman of Mr. Clovis’s unsuccessful campaign to become Iowa state treasurer.
In his resignation letter, Sessions said he was “honored to serve” as attorney general and said his Justice Department “restored and upheld the rule of law – a glorious tradition that each of us has a responsibility to safeguard.”
During his confirmation hearing, Sessions denied accusations from Democrats that he had made racially insensitive statements in the past. Though most Democrats voted against their former colleague, his confirmation was seen as redemption for Sessions, whose nomination for a 1986 federal judgeship was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.
For more than a year, Trump has repeatedly lambasted Sessions over his recusal, saying he wouldn’t have installed him as the country’s top law enforcement officer had he known his attorney general would recuse himself from the Russia probe. In September, Trump said of his strained relationship with Sessions, “I don’t have an attorney general.
The Democratic leader of the House Judiciary Committee called for “answers immediately as to the reasoning” behind Sessions’ removal. His statement comes a day after Democrats retook the House, giving them the power to launch investigations.
A look at the resignation from Attorney General of Jeff Sessions from the Trump Administration and the Attorney General's growing tension with President Trump, including his recusal from the Russia investigation.
Jeff Sessions, once one of President Trump’s most loyal and trusted advisers before infuriating Trump over his recusal from the Russia investigation, has resigned as attorney general at the request of the president. “At your request, I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions wrote in a Wednesday letter to Trump.
Trump and his aides have denied any collusion with the Russians. Sources told Fox News Whitaker will now be overseeing the Russia investigation.
In response to congressional inquiries, the Department of Justice released a series of internal communications — including e-mails with White House staff — that preceded the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Timeline: Behind the Firing of Eight U.S. Attorneys The Bush administration announced in December that it was replacing several federal prosecutors. The Democratic-controlled Congress has had hearings into whether the dismissals were politically motivated. Political furor has ensued. Follow events so far.
March 16, 2007: Sampson releases a statement through his lawyer saying that he did not resign because he failed to tell Justice officials the extent of his communications with the White House. Instead, he says, he resigned because he did not "organize a more effective political response" to the dismissals.
Feb. 14, 2005 : Gonzales is sworn in as attorney general of the United States. March 2, 2005: Sampson e-mails Miers a chart, categorizing U.S. attorneys into one of three groups based on whether they have "produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General.".
Jan. 18, 2007: Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons, or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing, serious investigation." ( Hear Gonzales' testimony.)
Sept. 23, 2005: Sampson becomes chief of staff to the attorney general
March 13, 2007: The Justice Department sends documents to Capitol Hill detailing the correspondence between White House and Justice Department officials over the U.S. attorneys issue. Gonzales insists that he will not resign amid calls for his ouster.