Sarah Sanders Addresses Trump Criticism Of Jeff Sessions During Wild Press Conference

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To say that the Trump administration has been marked by turmoil would be an understatement. The president fires off a nearly endless stream of incendiary tweets, a stream that underscores a remarkable level of chaos inside Washington, D.C., a level of chaos that hasn’t really been seen in some time. This chaos complicates the operations of the already corruption inclined Trump administration.

In the middle of all of this, one of the president’s latest targets is his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. He’s gone after Sessions in the past; this time, he posted an angry tweet against him because of the former U.S. Senator from Alabama supposedly not doing enough to address the alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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Trump and his allies allege that the Justice Department used FISA to procure corrupt warrants to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page in the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017.

At the Thursday White House press conference, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders addressed both that broader issue and the issue of the president’s repeated criticism of Jeff Sessions.

Answering a question of what exactly the president wants to see done with the FISA system, which Trump and his allies claim was manipulated via biased evidence against former Trump adviser Carter Page to procure surveillance warrants against him, Sanders commented:

‘The president has made clear that he has a lot of concerns… with the current FISA process. Nothing makes the problems of FISA cleaner than what was outlined in both the Republican and Democrat memos. The FBI used political campaign material to get a warrant to spy on American citizens. They failed to disclose to the judge that the dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, even as it was being used to spy on people associated with the Trump campaign. Obviously that alone shows us that the process needs to be looked at closely.’

Going on to address the president’s criticism of the already long controversial attorney general, Sanders commented:

‘Look, the president has made his frustrations very clear; I don’t have anything else to add.’

She also said that she is unaware of any plans on the part of the president to fire Sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ZCdkPP-L8

The issue over the oversight of the FISA system that Sessions is providing and Trump believes to be lackluster isn’t the first context for Trump going after the attorney general.

He has gone after him in the past, for instance, over not pursuing the long cleared Hillary Clinton to the extent that the president would like.

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Trump’s attacks on Sessions last year have reportedly prompted the scrutiny of Special Counsel Robert Mueller himself, who has already brought charges against four former Trump associates and has been understood to be scrutinizing the president on obstruction of justice allegations. There is a possibility that Trump seeming intent on pressuring Sessions to resign itself represents obstruction of justice.

This time around, the attorney general has chosen to stick up for himself, issuing a rare statement in his defense.

Sessions commented:

‘As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.’

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