A report from ABC News Tuesday says that tension between the president and Jeff Sessions has gotten so bad that the attorney general offered recently to resign.
Jon Karl of ABC News says his sources tell him that President Trump hasn't gotten over Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the investigations into alleged Russian collusion and meddling in the U.S. election.
According to the report, Sessions only notified Trump of his decision minutes before appearing on television and making the announcement. Trump sees the recusal as one of the "top disappointments of his presidency," say multiple sources, and he has continued to remind Sessions of his anger over it, to the point of lashing out at the attorney general in multiple meetings.
Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment on the story, and earlier Tuesday White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer would not answer if Trump still had confidence in Sessions.
"I have not had a discussion with him about that," Spicer responded to the question.
After being pressed on it, he added testily, "I said I have not had a discussion with him on the question. I don't, if I haven't had a discussion with him about a subject, I tend not to speak about it."
CNN's Jake Tapper compared that answer to a similar one given about former FBI Director James Comey just hours before he was fired.
White House won't say if President Trump has confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions https://t.co/T1l1Rhm3eE
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) June 6, 2017
https://t.co/Se1aAo7PSu
Sessions announced that he would recuse himself in March from all investigations into alleged Russian meddling and collusion in the U.S. election. He had just been accused of improperly failing to inform a confirmation committee about meetings he had with Russian officials, saying that he was doing so under the capacity as a Senator and not a Trump campaign associate.
Trump took to Facebook to decry the "total witch hunt" that he said the Democrats were on because they lost the election so badly.
