In yet another example of how almost anything can happen with Donald Trump as president, congressional Democrats find themselves standing up for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a man who almost all of them said should not be attorney general just a year ago.
The Democrats' flip appears to be in response to a new effort from some congressional Republicans to have Trump fire Sessions for not providing enough oversight to the independent Russian interference investigation. The get-Sessions movement is an outgrowth of the larger Republican effort to cast special counsel Robert Mueller (a long-time member of their own party) as an overzealous prosecutor out to get the president.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the sole Democrat to vote to confirm Sessions to his current position but the new threats against Sessions are getting many other Democrats to stand by his service as a means of protecting the Russia probe.
“I voted against Jeff Sessions and said he never should be there in the first place," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a news conference on Thursday. "My view now is very simple: nothing, nothing should ever interfere with the Mueller investigation.”
Trump has repeatedly accused Sessions of being disloyal by not forcing the FBI and Mueller to end their investigations into connections between the president's campaign and Russian nationals.
"I don’t want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him," Trump said during a Dec. 28 interview with the New York Times, referring to former attorney general Eric Holder's relationship with his boss, then-president Barack Obama.
The new attacks on the "beleaguered" attorney general are sure to meet with his approval.
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