Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been in plenty of public battles with President Trump, but this week’s tense exchange between the two now have some thinking that Sessions may be on the way out.
Most Republicans continued to defend Sessions after his latest fight with Trump over Twitter, but a few cracks showed this time around — signs that the Senate is coming to grips with the idea of replacing Sessions in the near future.
One Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., talked openly about the clock running out on Sessions after more than a year of Trump’s obvious frustration with his attorney general.
“The president’s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in. And I think there will come a time — sooner rather than later — where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” said Graham, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Graham said it wouldn’t be wise to replace Sessions before the midterm elections, but said it was “likely” he would be replaced after. That’s a sharp contrast from 13 months earlier, when Graham was arguing there would be “hell to pay” if Trump fired Sessions.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who also warned last year that he wouldn’t hold a confirmation hearing for a new attorney general, signaled in an interview with Bloomberg News that he might be able to make time for a hearing.
[Dana Rohrabacher: Sessions’ refusal to quit ‘is a disloyalty to this president and to the country’]
Those reactions have some observers saying the writing is on the wall, and Sessions’ career might be numbered in months.
Ford O’Connell, a political analyst and Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner that he can’t imagine Trump firing Sessions before the midterms “because of the possible political blowback at the ballot box.”
“No need to insert another factor into the equation as Republicans fight to hold the House and Senate,” he said. But after the election is a different story.
“Should Republicans hold the Senate following the midterms — the firing of Sessions is a very real possibility,” O’Connell said, pointing to Grassley and Graham’s recent comments.
Life has been tough for Sessions ever since he recused himself from the investigation into Russia’s alleged coordination with Trump during the 2016 election. Trump has fumed on and off about that decision for nearly 18 months now, and this week, his he lashed out once again at Sessions.
“I put in an attorney general who never took control of the Justice Department,” Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Thursday morning. “He took my job, and then he said, “I’m going to recuse myself.’ I said, ‘What kind of man is this?’”
Hours after the interview aired, and moments before Sessions was set to enter the White House for pre-planned meeting with Trump on criminal justice reform, the attorney general put aside his usual passivity and issued a direct response to the president.
“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda.” Sessions said in a statement. “While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”
Trump later complained that it would be “great” if Sessions would show the absence of political considerations by chasing down Democratic culprits for a change.
A major consideration for Trump as he considers what to do with Sessions is how to replace him. Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, and if the GOP majority stays narrow after November, a small number of Republicans would be able to block Trump’s nominee.
That could mean real trouble for Trump. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., declared this week he would likely vote against any nominee if Sessions is fired.
Firing Sessions would also make Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein the acting attorney general, and Trump has had his issues with Rosenstein as well.
Regardless, many Republicans would likely see the decision to fire Sessions as a way to upset the ongoing Russia investigation, and therefore is a move that would upset many of Trump’s allies. They say if the investigation really is a “witch hunt” as Trump claims, Trump should let it continue unimpeded.
The next few weeks could provide more clues about how much tolerance Trump has for a Justice Department that continues to give him headaches. Charges raised by special counsel Robert Mueller led to convictions against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to several other charges.
In September, a second Manafort trial will begin to deal with other charges dealing with his lobbying for foreign governments and witness tampering.
