Jeff Sessions finally stands up to Trump's bullying

Sessions speaks up after Trump tells Fox News that the attorney general has lost control of the Justice Department

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published August 23, 2018 4:09PM (EDT)

Jeff Sessions; Donald Trump (AP/Getty/Photo montage by Salon)
Jeff Sessions; Donald Trump (AP/Getty/Photo montage by Salon)

After more than a year of being bullied and publicly humiliated by President Donald Trump for recusing himself from the Trump-Russia investigation, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is finally standing up for himself.

"While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action. However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States," Sessions said in a statement, according to CNN.

He added, "I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President's agenda -- one that protects the safety and security and rights of the American people, reduces violent crime, enforces our immigration laws, promotes economic growth, and advances religious liberty. I am proud to serve with them and proud of the work we have done in successfully advancing the rule of law."

Sessions was responding to the latest Trump insult against him, which occurred during an interview that aired Thursday morning on "Fox & Friends."

"I put in an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions. Never took control of the Justice Department," Trump complained about Sessions on Fox News.

READ MORE: Is a senior Air Force general using his power to spread far-right Christian nationalism?

In the same interview, Trump predicted that he won't ever have to worry about being impeached.

"I guess it says something like 'high crimes' and all — I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job," Trump told Earhardt. "I'll tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor. Because without this thinking, you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe, in reverse. If Hillary Clinton got elected, instead of 4.1 up — and each point is $3.5 trillion and 10 million jobs — when I took it over it was at 1 and it was gonna be down, it was going down. I freed up, I got rid of regulations. The tax cut was a tremendous thing. But even before the tax cut, right from the first day, I got rid of regulations. I approved the pipelines, 48,000 jobs. But I did a lot of things. Had Hillary and the Democrats gotten in, had she become president, you would have had negative growth."

He also touched on an issue that has also been a cornerstone of Sessions' career: immigration reform.

"Mollie is this beautiful young girl, who the father — I watched the father, he kept saying, I sort of doubted it was gonna happen, 'She's coming back. She just left, but she's coming back.' And I'd say, 'That's called hope. And it's a beautiful thing in a way, it's hope.' But now there's no hope," Trump told Earhardt. "She was killed by a horrible person that came in from Mexico, illegally here, found by ICE, our great ICE, who is abused by the Democrats and the left. And without them, you might not be sitting here so comfortably right now."

Prior to the Mueller probe tearing them apart, Trump and Sessions were actually very close friends. The two became buddies after Trump impressed Sessions during a Senate hearing with his scathing assessment of what the United Nations was going to charge Americans for renovations. Later Sessions became one of the first sitting senators to endorse Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, eventually serving as an informal adviser.

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By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Donald Trump Jeff Sessions Robert Mueller Trump-russia