The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, insisted on Thursday that he would continue in his job “as long as that is appropriate”, despite Donald Trump’s barrage of criticism of him.
Trump had said in an interview published late Wednesday that he regretted giving him the job after Sessions recused himself from investigations into links with the Trump campaign and Russia.
As he marked six months in office, the president appeared increasingly upset over Sessions stepping aside on the issue and Robert Mueller subsequently being appointed as the special counsel investigating possible ties between Trump and Russia.
Amid signs of Mueller’s inquiries expanding, and just hours after Trump had publicly criticized Sessions, who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters, the attorney general had to appear at a scheduled press event, where he gave a muted defense of his continued work to further the president’s agenda.
Sessions said: “I have the honor of serving as attorney general. It’s something that goes beyond any thought I would have ever had for myself. We love this job. We love this department and I plan to continue to do so, as long as that is appropriate.”
Trump had lashed out days before his son Donald Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner are scheduled to speak to Congressional investigators investigating Russia’s clandestine election interference .
Kushner, a senior adviser, is due to appear in front of the Senate intelligence committee in private on Monday, while Donald Jr – who has become embroiled in the Russia enquiries after it emerged he met a Kremlin-linked lawyer offering information on Hilary Clinton – will appear publicly before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday. Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign chair, will also appear Wednesday.
Speaking to the New York Times, Trump had blamed Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the investigation and Sessions’ deputy, Rod Rosenstein, for appointing the special prosecutor to oversee the inquiry – both decisions that were greeted by some lawmakers on both the left and right as the only appropriate ethical choices. Trump told the newspaper: “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 also criticized Mueller, the special counsel, for interviewing with him for the job of FBI director the day before he agreed to oversee the Russia probe – an inquiry that has reportedly widened to include scrutiny of whether Trump’s firing of former FBI director James Comey might have obstructed the investigation.
It also was reported on Thursday that Mueller’s investigation has expanded into a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses, according to Bloomberg News, which cited a source familiar with the inquiry. In focus, the source said, are Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, his involvement in a Soho hotel development in New York with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and the purchase from Trump by a Russian oligarch of a Florida mansion in 2008.
Trump had told the Times that Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at his family’s finances beyond Russian relationships. “I think that’s a violation,” he told the paper. “Look, this is about Russia.”
In his interview, Trump avoided saying whether he would fire Mueller if his investigation went outside of the parameters the president believed were fair. “I can’t, I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Trump said.
The president’s public attacks left the nation’s highest law enforcement agency on the defensive. Asked how he could continue to serve without the confidence of the president, Sessions said: “We’re serving right now.”
The former conservative senator from Alabama was forced to step aside from the investigation into possible Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in March after meetings he had failed to disclose with the Russian ambassador came to light.
Sessions defended his record of supporting Trump’s crime-fighting agenda, and said he loved his job. Rosenstein, who earned Trump’s ire by choosing to appoint an special prosecutor to oversee the Russia investigation, made a more spirited defense, telling reporters: “I was proud to be here yesterday, I’m proud to be here today and I will be proud to work here tomorrow.”
“We wholeheartedly join in the priorities of President Trump,” Sessions said, adding later: “I am totally confident that we can continue to run this office in an efficient way.”
At a brief justice department press conference over a collaborative law enforcement takedown of dark web site AlphaBay, Sessions touted the department’s success in fighting transnational crime, and noted that the case was an example of the department carrying out one of the president’s own priorities.
After three questions, reporters were asked if any of them had questions about the AlphaBay case. When not a single reporter raised a hand, the press conference was abruptly ended.
Sessions left the briefing room to reporters repeated shouted questions: “Attorney General Sessions, will you not resign?” One reported asked if Sessions feared being “seen as a zombie attorney general”. He made no answer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
