Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz believes Republicans in the Senate will prevent President Trump from installing a “crony” attorney general after Jeff Sessions was fired.
“He doesn’t have complete free rein. There are enough Republican senators who wouldn’t let him appoint a crony, who would at least insist that the person appointed be somebody of distinction and some degree of independence,” Dershowitz said Wednesday during an interview on Fox News. Trump’s pick to replace Sessions as the country’s top law enforcement officer will need to be confirmed by the Senate.
[Opinion: 6 people Trump should consider to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions]
Dershowitz said the biggest issue amid the fallout of Sessions’ departure is whether the report being complied by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, outlining the team’s findings from its federal Russia investigation, “gets released publicly.”
Sessions submitted his resignation letter Wednesday at Trump’s direction. The pair had repeatedly clashed over Sessions’ March 2017 decision to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller’s probe given his connection to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and his contacts with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Sessions’ old chief of staff Matthew Whitaker became acting attorney general effective immediately. Whitaker has been critical of the Mueller inquiry, writing in an op-ed last year that Mueller had exceeded the scope of his investigation and suggested it could be curbed by funding cuts.
