GOP senator: Trump wants to fire Sessions for not being a ‘hack’

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) says he has warned President Trump that firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions “would be a very, very, very bad idea.” 

Sasse, speaking on the Senate floor, said that if Trump terminated Sessions, it would be because the attorney general has refused to execute “his job as a political hack.”

{mosads}“It’s been a strange couple of hours. Lots and lots of goofy talk about firing the attorney general,” Sasse said.

“I would just like to say in public what I’ve been saying to my colleagues in a message I just communicated to the president of the United States,” he continued.

“It would be a very, very, very bad idea to fire the attorney general because he’s not executing his job as a political hack. That is not the job of the attorney general.”

The GOP senator, a sometimes outspoken critic of Trump’s trade policies, defended Sessions, even while acknowledging that he doesn’t always agree with him.

“Everybody in this body knows that Jeff Sessions has been executing his job in a way faithful to his oath of office, to the Constitution, and trying to defend the rule of law,” Sasse said.

Sasse was one of several GOP lawmakers who defended Sessions on Thursday.

Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) told reporters earlier in the day that “those of us who’ve worked with Jeff Sessions for the last 15 years or more know him to be an honorable man, somebody who’s dedicated not only to [the] rule of law but also to the Department of Justice.”