President Trump packed quite a bit into two tweets clapping back at his former attorney general who is walking a fine line standing up to his former boss while trying not to alienate voters in his home state.
Not taking kindly to Jeff Sessions, who is running in Alabama to regain his old Senate seat, defending his recusal from the Russia investigation, the commander in chief piled on the insults while also lashing out at prominent Democrats.
“Jeff, you had your chance & you blew it. Recused yourself ON DAY ONE (you never told me of a problem), and ran for the hills. You had no courage, & ruined many lives. The dirty cops, & others, got caught by better & stronger people than you. Hopefully this slime will pay a big price,” Trump tweeted Saturday evening.
“You should drop out of the race & pray that super liberal @DougJones, a weak & pathetic puppet for Crazy Nancy Pelosi & Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, gets beaten badly. He voted for impeachment based on ‘ZERO’. Disgraced Alabama. Coach @TTuberville will be a GREAT Senator!” he added.
….price. You should drop out of the race & pray that super liberal @DougJones, a weak & pathetic puppet for Crazy Nancy Pelosi & Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, gets beaten badly. He voted for impeachment based on “ZERO”. Disgraced Alabama. Coach @TTuberville will be a GREAT Senator!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2020
Sessions fired back with two missives of his own.
“I will never apologize for following the law and serving faithfully and with honor. Neither of us knew about the phony investigation into our campaign until after I was sworn in. As you will recall, I recommended firing @Comey from the very beginning,” he said. “You and I fight for the same agenda. @TTuberville is so weak he won’t debate me & too weak for Alabama. AL will vote for you this fall, but Alabama will not take orders from Washington on who to send to the Senate. @realDonaldTrump.”
You and I fight for the same agenda. @TTuberville is so weak he won’t debate me & too weak for Alabama. AL will vote for you this fall, but Alabama will not take orders from Washington on who to send to the Senate. @realDonaldTrump
— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 24, 2020
Trump’s tweets Saturday evening were a direct response to Sessions telling the president his “anger” will do nothing to swing the U.S. Senate race in Alabama to primary rival, Tommy Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach.
“Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law,” Sessions said to the president late Friday. “I did my duty & you’re damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration. Your personal feelings don’t dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do.”
Hours earlier, Trump encouraged Alabama residents to vote for Tuberville, who has branded himself a pro-Trump Republican.
“3 years ago, after Jeff Sessions recused himself, the Fraudulent Mueller Scam began,” Trump tweeted. “Alabama, do not trust Jeff Sessions. He let our Country down. That’s why I endorsed Coach Tommy Tuberville (@TTuberville), the true supporter of our #MAGA agenda!”
.@realdonaldtrump Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law. I did my duty & you’re damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration. Your personal feelings don’t dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do. https://t.co/QQKHNAgmiE
— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 23, 2020
Both Sessions and Tuberville have campaigned on their support of Trump, who is popular in their state, but Sessions has carried the added burden of a former boss who feels betrayed by the recusal and has made no effort to hide it.
Sessions, who left the attorney general job in November 2018, has repeatedly explained that he recused himself from the investigation into the Trump team’s ties to Russia because he himself was peripherally a part of the campaign. In fact, Sessions was one of Trump’s earliest supporters in the 2016 presidential contest. Following his recusal, and after FBI Director James Comey was fired in May 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the Russia investigation.
Mueller’s inquiry, which ended in the spring of 2019, was unable to find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. It did, however, lead to convictions and guilty pleas from Trump associates over charges unrelated to Russia collusion. Trump and many of his allies have long derided the inquiry as a “witch hunt,” and there is now an effort underway by the Justice Department to seek out any misconduct by the investigators.
Democrats fear the review, being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, is a politically tainted inquisition to discredit the Mueller team’s work.
Tuberville and Sessions got the two top spots in the late-March GOP primary, as they vie to unseat Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who has Sessions’s old spot that he vacated in February 2017 to become attorney general. A primary runoff has been pushed back to July 14 because of concerns about the coronavirus.
A recent survey released by Cygnal, a polling and analytics firm, found Tuberville with a comfortable advantage over Sessions.
