Trump Says He Would Not Have Hired Sessions Given Recusal

"We love this department and I plan to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate".

On Wednesday, The New York Times published what it calls a "wide-ranging" interview of Donald Trump, which is an extremely charitable way of conveying the fact that the President of the United States sounds an bad lot like someone in the midst of a precipitous mental decline.

Gage Skidmore / Flickr.comIn an interview with The New York Times, President Donald Trump attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russian Federation investigation.

"Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else", Trump told the Times. The second is that Trumps version of events is a little odd; Sessions wouldnt have even known there was reason to recuse himself when he was nominated, given his recusal had to do with his failure to report contacts with Russias ambassador during the ensuing confirmation process.

The advisers said the president viewed Sessions' move as an act of disloyalty - arguably the most grievous offense in the president's mind - and was angry that Sessions did not consult with him ahead of time.

Sessions was pressed on how he can still effectively serve as attorney general with Trump's seeming lack of confidence in him.

The attorney general testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he began discussing recusal with officials at the Justice Department the day after he took office in February. "How do you take a job and then recuse yourself?"

When asked by reporters how he could continue to serve, Sessions made it clear that he wasn't going anywhere.

The interview that Trump gave on Wednesday to three reporters from the Times offers us that opportunity.

TRUMP: So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself.

Sessions' sin is failing to do his job, which, as Trump sees it, is not overseeing the impartial administration of justice but assiduously protecting the legal interests of Donald J. Trump.

Trump also asserted that former FBI Director James Comey had presented him with a dossier containing a number of allegations about himself and Russian Federation prior to his inauguration as a way to have leverage over him.

And Sessions has given no public hints that he plans to leave, traveling the country for speeches to outline a tough-on-crime approach to violence and immigration.

President Donald Trump shares a laugh with (clockwise from left) Ms.Seema Verma, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Secretary Tom Price, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Vice President Mike Pence on.

The first two Republican senators said that, like Trump, they were concerned about the special counsel, but still criticized Trump's comments about potentially drawing a line for Mueller's investigation. "Clearly, he has confidence in him or he would not be the attorney general", she responded.

So Sessions' situation and the question of whether he could oversee the Russian Federation investigation isn't a close call. In the interview, Trump said he had immediately written it off as false. Shortly after the tweet criticizing the team assembled by Mueller, Trump cited the fact that Rosenstein had sent him a memo at Trumps request pointing to Comeys failures as Federal Bureau of Investigation director.

The president has repeatedly told those close to him that he fears there is a movement underway, fueled in part by Comey, Rosenstein and potentially Mueller, to discredit his presidency.