Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reportedly contemplating a return to the Senate after President Trump fired him on Wednesday.
A source close to Sessions told CNN that the country’s former top law enforcement official isn’t ruling out running for his old seat in 2020 against Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala. Jones replaced Sessions in the Senate via a fierce special election last year against Republican candidate Roy Moore, whose almost assured victory was hindered by multiple women of sexual misconduct.
Source close to Sessions says he’s “taking a serious look” at running in 2020 against Democrat @SenDougJones for his old Alabama Senate seat
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 7, 2018
Former Sen. Luther Strange, the Alabama Republican who temporarily filled Sessions’ spot in the Senate when he was promoted to Trump’s Cabinet, on Wednesday tweeted his support of such a move hours before Sessions’ firing was made public.
Jeff Sessions for Senate in 2020! #alpolitics
— Luther Strange (@lutherstrange) November 7, 2018
Sessions submitted his resignation letter to White House chief of staff John Kelly on Wednesday afternoon following an earlier request from Trump. The pair had repeatedly clashed over Sessions’ March 2017 decision to recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation, based on concerns he had been an outspoken surrogate for Trump during the 2016 campaign and had failed to disclose contacts with ex-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Sessions’ chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, is now the acting attorney general. Whitaker has been critical of the Mueller probe, writing in an op-ed last year that Mueller’s team had exceeded its scope and should be limited by curbing its funding.
