US Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks on issues related to visas and travel after US President Donald Trump signed a new travel ban order in Washington, US, March 6, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Washington: US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would not have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation, according to a New York Times interview.
“Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” the Times quoted Trump as saying.
Sessions recused himself in March from the probe into allegations of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and possible ties between Russians and the Trump campaign. He did so after failing to disclose at his confirmation hearing that he had held meetings last year with Russia’s ambassador.
A Sessions spokesman declined a Reuters request for comment.
There were media reports last month that Sessions, a former US senator who was an early supporter of Trump’s campaign, had offered to resign because of tensions with Trump over the recusal.
Ian Bremmer, the president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, has said the meeting lasted about an hour.