President Trump said on Wednesday that he would not have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions if he knew Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said Sessions’ decision to recuse himself “was very unfair to the president.”
“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 said.
Trump also criticized Sessions for his testimony during the Senate confirmation process when Sessions said he had not met with Russians even though he later admitted to meeting at least twice with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Those revelations led to Sessions recusing himself.
“Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers,” Trump said. “He gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren’t.”
After Sessions recused himself, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein assumed purview of the FBI’s Russia investigation. Rosenstein later appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the investigation because of the role Rosenstein played in firing FBI Director James Comey.
