Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said he would “absolutely not” stick around if he were in Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ shoes and continued to be “belittled” by President Trump.
“I wouldn’t stay at all unless the president wanted me to stay, and he appointed me. I wouldn’t be under anybody — I wouldn’t be anybody’s whipping boy,” Shelby said in an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday.
“I wouldn’t be belittled because the president is saying you don’t have any confidence in me,” he said. “That is Jeff’s challenge right now, what he wants to do and how he does it. He’s a good man. He’s going through a lot. He’s got a lot of challenges.”
When Shelby was asked whether he would remain attorney general under similar conditions, Shelby replied, “Absolutely not.”
President Trump has publicly vented his frustrations with Sessions for recusing himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The president’s most recent criticism of his attorney general came Wednesday when he slammed Sessions for not directing Justice Department lawyers to investigate abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under former President Barack Obama. Instead, Sessions asked the department’s inspector general to look into possible abuses.
“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” Trump tweeted. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”
Sessions fired back at Trump in a statement Wednesday.
“As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution,” he said.
Shelby, who served for nearly two decades alongside Sessions when he was an Alabama senator, wouldn’t speculate about Sessions’ future in the administration.
“Ultimately, it’s going to be up to whether the attorney general wants to stay in the job and be belittled by the president, his boss who put in there. Or does he want to leave?” he said. “That’s a decision he’ll have to make.”
