Can Trump fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions? Yes, but it would be unprecedented
President Trump's attacks on his Jeff Sessions left many in Washington wondering whether Trump would fire his attorney general.
In an interview with the New York Times, the president on Wednesday slammed Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, believing that this action led to the appointment of a special counsel.
As the investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians seeking to influence the election by hacking Democrats continues to dog his term, Trump said he would not have nominated Sessions in the first place had he known Sessions would step aside.
For his part, Sessions insists that he's staying put. He said Thursday that he would serve in his position for "as long as that is appropriate."
As speculation continues about Trump's next moves, here are five things to know:
Can the president fire his attorney general?
Yes. Just as the president appoints the attorney general, subject to Senate approval, he can also dismiss the attorney general.
But that doesn't mean they should. Firing an attorney general would almost certainly come with tremendous political blowback and accusations of interference with law enforcement matters.
Has one ever been fired before?
No. While past presidents have clashed with their top law enforcement officials – which in one case led to a resignation – a president has never directly fired his attorney general.
Trump made headlines when he dismissed acting Attorney General Sally Yates for directing the Justice Department not to defend the president's temporary travel ban. But that was the exception, not the rule. What's more, Yates was only in that temporary position for 10 days.
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Have other presidents clashed with their attorneys general?
Yes. It's not just Trump.
One of the most controversial and consequential clashes occurred between President Nixon and Attorney General Elliot Richardson. After Richardson appointed a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, to investigate the break-in of the Democratic National Committee’s offices at the Watergate Hotel, Cox subpoenaed tapes of key White House conversations.
Instead of turning them over, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused, and resigned. So did his deputy. The Saturday Night Massacre, as it was called, was one of the key developments that led to Nixon’s resignation.
What about in more recent administrations?
During the George W. Bush administration, there was a hospital room showdown between Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and top Bush aides. Andrew Card, Bush’s chief of staff, and White House Counsel Albert Gonzales wanted Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush’s domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal. Ashcroft was laying in bed in an intensive care unit after his gallbladder was removed.
Then FBI director Robert Mueller – who is now, incidentally, the special counsel investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election – and then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey raced with sirens blaring to the hospital to get there before the White House aides. They succeeded, and Ashcroft refused to sign the papers that Gonzales and Card brought with them.
The dispute was later resolved, Comey told Congress years later, when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. He agreed to make changes to the surveillance program. But that was after Ashcroft, Comey and Mueller said they were prepared to resign.
Is it just Republicans who have problems with attorneys general?
Nope.
Janet Reno, the second-longest serving attorney general in history, was President Bill Clinton’s third choice for the job and was never a confidante. Reno tried to maintain her independence from the White House as she was thrust into a nearly unending series of tests, from the government’s deadly raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, and the first World Trade Center attack investigation to the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, and the international custody battle for a Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez.
Republicans were infuriated when Reno rejected a recommendation to appoint a special counsel to look at the campaign fundraising activities of Vice President Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee. But Reno did authorize an independent investigation of a failed Clinton land deal in Arkansas. That led to an investigation into Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As a result, Hillary Clinton never forgave Reno, according to The Washington Post.
But who really didn’t like his attorney general?
The antipathy between Lyndon Johnson and his attorney general Robert Kennedy was “perhaps the greatest blood feud of American politics in the twentieth century,” historian Robert Caro has written.
The dislike began, and grew, years before Kennedy served under Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to a Garry Wills review of Caro's book, it started with their very first meeting, in the Senate cafeteria in 1953. Kennedy refused to rise or even look at Johnson. But Johnson forced Kennedy to shake hands. Their real feud began, according to author Jeff Shesol, when Kennedy ran his brother's 1960 presidential campaign. Johnson was John F. Kennedy's main competitor.
Johnson, after he became president, couldn’t fire Bobby Kennedy as attorney general. But he was overjoyed when Kennedy left the administration nine months later to run for the Senate.
