Trump calls on Sessions to 'stop the rigged witch hunt right now'

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August 1, 2018 3:16 PM

His tweet: “..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday to end the special counsel investigation, an extraordinary appeal to the nation’s top law enforcement official to end an inquiry directly in to the president.

His tweet: “..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!”

Trump made the overture in a series of Twitter posts, some of which contained quotations the president attributed to a staunch supporters, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

“FBI Agent Peter Strzok (on the Mueller team) should have recused himself on day one. He was out to STOP THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP. He needed an insurance policy. Those are illegal, improper goals, trying to influence the Election. He should never, ever been allowed to.............remain in the FBI while he himself was being investigated. This is a real issue. It won’t go into a Mueller Report because Mueller is going to protect these guys. Mueller has an interest in creating the illusion of objectivity around his investigation.” ALAN DERSHOWITZ....”

Sessions recused himself from overseeing the investigation early in 2017 in part to avoid the kind of conflicts like what Trump proposed. Later, a special counsel, Robert Mueller, was appointed to carry out the investigation.

Trump’s blunt direction to Sessions came on the second day of the trial of Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman and the first person charged in the special counsel investigation to go to trial. Manafort is accused of bank and tax crimes.

Trump also tweeted Wednesday that Manafort did not work for his campaign long, a defense he has used repeatedly to distance himself from his former campaign chairman.

Presidents typically do not weigh in on ongoing Justice Department investigations, but Trump has been outspoken about his anger and frustration with the Russia investigation, which predates his presidency and was later taken over by Mueller. Trump has also said that he never would have made Sessions his attorney general if he knew Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia inquiry.

The special counsel is also looking into some of Trump’s tweets about Sessions and the former FBI Director James B. Comey and whether the messages were intended to obstruct justice.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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