Politics

Trump may be considering replacing Sessions with Giuliani

President Trump is considering naming Rudy Giuliani to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a report on Monday.

The president is so unhappy with Sessions, who he criticized last week for recusing himself from the Russia investigations, that he is thinking of bringing back the former mayor to run the Justice Department, Axios reported, citing sources.

In a tweet early Monday, Trump expressed his mounting dissatisfaction with Sessions by referring to him as “beleaguered.”

“So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?,” Trump wrote.

Trump said Sessions decision to recuse himself was “very unfair to the president.”

“Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Trump told the New York Times last week.

A day later, Sessions, a former senator from Alabama, said he was “completely confident” he could continue running the Justice Department.

“We love this job. We love this department. And I plan to continue to do so as long as is appropriate,” the attorney general said.

Axios said the president is looking at Giuliani, a staunch supporter during the campaign, as he gears up for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the election and whether Trump campaign officials assisted.

Trump last Friday, frustrated that the White House isn’t on point about the Russia investigation and his legislative agenda, shook up his communications office, naming former Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci as the new director.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who opposed the naming of Scaramucci, resigned.

During the presidential transition, Giuliani lobbied Trump to serve as his secretary of state and was among candidates being considered for attorney general, along with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and his name came up to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Pitching himself for the attorney general post, Giuliani, a former US attorney, told CNN days after the election that “there’s probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me.”

But by December, Giuliani told the president that he would remove his name from consideration for a Cabinet post and said the only job he was really interested in was secretary of state.

“He offered me some Cabinet positions, which I’m very, very thankful for. It just didn’t work out in terms of my private life,” Giuliani said on “Fox and Friends.”