U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.
No permanent replacement was named.
The timing one day after the mid-term election and the lack of an immediate replacement suggest Trump fired Sessions, something he has apparently been itching to do for more than a year.
The president has never gotten over Sessions’s decision early in his tenure to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, which triggered the current continuing special counsel investigation. Trump has said publicly that if he had known Sessions would recuse himself he wouldn’t have appointed him Attorney General.
Sessions was the first member of the United States Senate to endorse Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and seemed to be riding high in the early days after the election. But his relationship with the president was strained for most of his tenure.
Sessions most recently appeared in Boston on October 29 to address the Federalist Society on religious liberty. His talk was interrupted by three hecklers.
We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well….
