· It was one of the most consequential weeks for the Justice Department, as it led to Sessions’ recusal and, ultimately, Mueller’s takeover as special counsel for the Russia probe. It broke the...
 · Sessions’ Recusal and Rosenstein’s Appointment of a Special Counsel—Both Were Legally Required. by Fred Wertheimer and Donald Simon. September 17, 2018. President Donald Trump made 5,001 false or misleading claims, as of Sept. 12, 2018, according to a running tally kept by the Washington Post. This included an astonishing 79 such claims on one day alone: …
 · Lawyers and Justice Department officials on Friday were poring through statutes and scratching their collective heads over who has authority to sign warrants for the FBI’s electronic ...
 · WASHINGTON — By the time Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner one Saturday evening in March 2017, he had been …
In meetings with top Justice Department officials about terrorist suspects, Sessions often has a particular question: Where is the person from? When officials tell him a suspect was born and lives in the United States, he typically has a follow-up: To what country does his family trace its lineage?
Questions about Sessions’s attitudes toward race and nationality have swirled around him since a Republican-led Senate committee in 1986 rejected his nomination by President Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship, amid allegations of racism.
Sessions's moves to empower prosecutors have led to a concerted focus on hate-crimes prosecutions — a point his defenders say undercuts the notion that he is not interested in protecting the rights of minorities or other groups.
He was confirmed and sworn in as Attorney General in February 2017. In his confirmation hearings, Sessions stated under oath that he did not have contact with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign and that he was unaware of any contact between Trump campaign members and Russian officials.
Sessions replied that he was "not aware of any of those activities" and said "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have – did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it."
According to Senator Jeff Flake, "the president has been pushing [Sessions] very openly to go after the president's enemies and lay off his friends," adding "And so far, Jeff Sessions, bless his heart, has resisted and maintained that the judiciary needs to be independent.".
In March 2016, one of Trump's foreign policy advisors named George Papadopoulos suggested that he could use personal connections to arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Sessions rejected the proposed meeting, according to information provided to CNN by a person in attendance.
On December 21, 2017, Sessions rescinded 200 pages of guidance documents.
On April 24, 2017 , Sessions traveled to an ethics lawyers' conference to assure them the department would continue prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, regardless of Trump's comments that the law is a "horrible law" and that "the world is laughing at us".
Trump would later state in an August 22, 2018 interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that the only reason he nominated Sessions was because Sessions was an original supporter during his presidential campaign. The nomination engendered support and opposition from various groups and individuals. He was introduced by Senator Susan Collins from Maine who said, "He's a decent individual with a strong commitment to the rule of law. He's a leader of integrity. I think the attacks against him are not well founded and are unfair." More than 1,400 law school professors wrote a letter urging the Senate to reject the nomination. A group of black pastors rallied in support of Sessions in advance of his confirmation hearing; his nomination was supported by Gerald A. Reynolds, an African American former chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Six NAACP activists, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, were arrested at a January 2017 sit-in protesting the nomination.