Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Thursday evening became the latest senator to predict that President Trump will fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions after November’s midterm elections.
Corker told Politico that he felt that “moves are being made” to bring about Sessions’s ouster from the Department of Justice.
“It’s very apparent to me that the president wants to do something to Attorney General Sessions. But it’s also apparent that in the interim that Sessions owns him,” Corker said.
“It’s apparent that after the midterms he [Trump] will make a change and choose someone to do what he wants done. … It just feels to me that after the midterms the president will make the change.”
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was the first on Thursday to bring up the prospect that Trump could fire his attorney general in the foreseeable future.
“The president’s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that’s qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” he said. “Clearly, Attorney General Sessions doesn’t have the confidence of the president.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reversed course on Thursday in telling Bloomberg that he had time for nomination hearings – an apparent reference to his previous comments that his panel didn’t have time to take up an attorney general nomination.
The comments came after Trump renewed his attack on Sessions’s credibility in an interview that aired on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning.
Some Republican senators attempted to throw cold water on the prospect of Sessions’s removal.
“We don’t have time, nor is there a likely candidate, who could get confirmed, in my view, under these current circumstances,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.
Sessions issued a rare rebuke of Trump’s criticism on Thursday, saying in a statement he “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”