A day after Republicans lost the majority in the House, President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ending a partnership that soured almost from the start of the administration and degenerated into one of the most acrimonious public standoffs between a commander in chief and a senior cabinet member in modern American history.
Republican success in holding onto the Senate, and building their slim majority, may make it easier for Trump to confirm a successor.
Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’s chief of staff, will take over as acting attorney general, Trump announced in two tweets just hours after he met with reporters in a bombastic press conference.
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….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018
….We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018
Whitaker is a Trump loyalist, and has served as what one White House aide called a “balm” on the relationship between the president and the Justice Department.
He has frequently visited the Oval Office and is said to have an easy chemistry with Trump.
Trump has regularly attacked the Justice Department and Sessions, blaming the attorney general for the specter of the special counsel investigation into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein would normally be in line to become the acting attorney general, but Trump has complained publicly about Rosenstein, too.
Since Sessions is recused from all election-related matters, Rosenstein has overseen the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia.
Such a move might clear the way for Trump to fire Mueller.
To dismiss a special counsel, Trump has to order the attorney general or, in the case of a recusal, the deputy attorney general to carry it out.
Rosenstein has said that he sees no justification to dismiss Mueller.
Trump has already fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director originally overseeing the investigation.
In pushing out his attorney general, Trump cast aside one of his earliest and strongest supporters.
In February 2016, Mr. Sessions became the first sitting senator to endorse Trump’s presidential campaign, and in the months leading up to the election, he became one of the candidate’s closest national security advisers.
When Trump said that Sessions “never took control of the Justice Department,” Sessions fired back hours later, saying in a rare public rebuke that he “took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in.”
“The Department of Justice,” Sessions said, “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”