Responding to President Donald Trump's latest attack on his own handpicked Attorney General, a former White House official admitted they are appalled at how Trump continues to attack Jeff Sessions.
In a piece describing the ongoing chaos in the White House -- with one insider saying, "It’s becoming a game of survival" -- the New York Times reports that Sessions is still the main focus of Trump's ire.
In a recent interview, Trump attacked Sessions saying, "I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad,” before adding, "I’m so sad over Jeff Sessions because he came to me. He was the first senator that endorsed me. And he wanted to be attorney general, and I didn’t see it."
Trump went onto add, “And then he went through the nominating process and he did very poorly. I mean, he was mixed up and confused, and people that worked with him for, you know, a long time in the Senate were not nice to him, but he was giving very confusing answers. Answers that should have been easily answered. And that was a rough time for him.”
Speaking with the Times, the former White House official said the latest attack is not unusual coming from the President who routinely attacks the Justice Department and the FBI -- calling the law enforcement agency "a cancer in our country."
“It is a complete disgrace the way that Trump is acting like a schoolyard bully against Sessions,” the official lamented while speaking on the condition of anonymity.
According to former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, Trump doesn't understand the role of the Attorney General, believing he can use the nation's top lawman as an enforcer.
“Trump doesn’t just blur the lines, he flat out tries to eradicate those lines,” Vance explained. “He wants a consigliere, not an attorney general. On the one hand, it’s a pitiful thing to watch, but it’s also deadly serious because the attorney general does not protect the president. The attorney general protects the American people. And the fact that we have a president who doesn’t understand that is alarming.”
You can read more about White House infighting here.