LAST UPDATE | 7 Nov 2018
US ATTORNEY GENERAL Jeff Sessions has announced that he’s resigning.
He said that he’s resigning at the request of President Donald Trump. “At your request I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions wrote.
In his letter, he details the achievements during his time in office, claiming to prosecute “the largest number of violent offenders and firearm defendants in our country’s history”.
He thanked the men and women who worked in law enforcement and said that he’s had “no greater honour than to serve alongside them”.
Trump has tweeted out his response to the announcement.
“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.
We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.
The move raises questions over the future of the Mueller investigation into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
In August 2017, Whitaker wrote an opinion article for CNN that claimed that the Mueller investigation had gone too far.
“It does not take a lawyer or even a former federal prosecutor like myself to conclude that investigating Donald Trump’s finances or his family’s finances falls completely outside of the realm of his 2016 campaign and allegations that the campaign coordinated with the Russian government or anyone else.”
He argued that the scope of Mueller’s investigation should be limited.
“[If it isn't], then Mueller’s investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition. This would not only be out of character for a respected figure like Mueller, but also could be damaging to the President of the United States and his family — and by extension, to the country.”
The announcement comes hours after Trump’s Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives, but increased their majority in the Senate.
- with reporting from AFP
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