President Trump said on Wednesday that he would not have picked Jeff Sessions as his attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the investigations into Russian election meddling.
That Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the probe, Trump told The New York Times in an interview, is “very unfair to the president.”
“Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Trump said.
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“How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said ‘thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you,” he continued. “It’s extremely unfair — and that’s a mild word — to the president.”
Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election, including possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, in March after it was revealed that he failed to disclose to the Senate two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while he was a surrogate for Trump’s campaign.
The announcement that Sessions would step back from the investigation surprised Trump, who told the Times on Wednesday that the attorney general gave him “zero” warning before recusing himself.
Trump’s young administration has been dogged by ongoing investigations into whether members of his campaign coordinated with Russian officials to help swing the election in his favor.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or improper activity and has called the probe a “witch hunt.