Trump ‘still has confidence’ in Sessions, White House says

The White House said Thursday that President Trump “still has confidence” in Jeff Sessions despite his harsh criticism a day earlier, as the attorney general also told reporters he would stay on the job for as long as “appropriate.”

The president had lashed out at the nation’s top law enforcement official in a New York Times interview, faulting him for recusing himself from the Russia probe and suggesting he wouldn’t have hired him had he known in advance. As the president’s comments reverberated across Washington, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was peppered with questions about the president’s confidence level in the AG.

“As he said yesterday, he was disappointed in Attorney General Sessions’ decision to recuse himself, but clearly he has confidence in him or he would not be the attorney general,” Sanders said. She said Trump spoke “very clearly” about Sessions’ decision to recuse and that the attorney general “certainly did not tell him” of his recusal plans before taking the job.

When asked whether Trump would seek Sessions’ resignation, she said: “I think you know this president well enough to know that if he wanted somebody to take an action, he would make that quite clear.”

Sanders also was pressed as to whether Trump had confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

“If the president didn’t have confidence, he wouldn’t be in that position,” Sanders said.

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