Trump attacks his own Justice Department in Times interview
By
Patrick Martin
21 July 2017
In a lengthy interview Wednesday with three reporters for the New York Times, President Trump publicly criticized his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and three other Justice Department officials who have the main responsibility for the federal investigation into allegations that the Russian government intervened in the US elections to support Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Both the content of the interview and the venue were extraordinary. Trump blasted Sessions—his first and most prominent congressional backer during the Republican primary campaign—for recusing himself from oversight of the Russia investigation. And he made his comments to the New York Times, the newspaper that has been spearheading the campaign to portray the Trump campaign, and the president himself, as in collusion with Moscow.
Trump called Sessions’s decision to recuse himself “very unfair to the president,” adding, “How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair—and that’s a mild word—to the president.”
He went on to attack the fairness and impartiality of the three Justice Department officials with the main responsibility for the Russia investigation: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who now supervises the investigation since Sessions has recused himself; special counsel Robert Mueller, the retired FBI director selected by Rosenstein to run the probe after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey; and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who plays a major role, at least until Trump nominee Christopher Wray is confirmed by the…