President Trump on Saturday mocked his former Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his decision to recuse himself in the federal Russia probe while doing an impression of the former Alabama senator’s Southern accent.
Trump, speaking before a crowd of conservatives at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, hammered Sessions over his decision to recuse himself, something that he has long derided the former top Justice Department official for doing.
“And the attorney general says ‘I’m gonna recuse myself,’ ” Trump said, appearing to imitate Sessions’s accent as the crowd booed.
Sessions recused himself in March 2017 from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election, including possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, after it was revealed that he failed to disclose to the Senate two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while he was a surrogate for Trump’s campaign.
Trump was vocal about his disdain for the decision, saying it was “very unfair” to him.{mosads}
“How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said ‘thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you,’ ” Trump said. “It’s extremely unfair — and that’s a mild word — to the president.”
Sessions resigned as the top Justice Department official in November at Trump’s request following months of a strained relationship between the pair.
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s book, released in September, detailed how Trump previously mocked Sessions’s Southern accent in the White House.
“This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner,” Trump reportedly told then-White House staff secretary Rob Porter while using a Southern accent. “He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”
Trump denied that he had used those terms and said “being a southerner is a GREAT thing.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham had warned Trump that it was “unwise” to mock Sessions’s accent and education background, saying it could antagonize some of the president’s most loyal supporters in Alabama.