Trump Reveals His New Way of Referring to the Department of Justice as He Attacks Jeff Sessions
President Donald Trump said he now puts “justice” in quotes when referring to the Justice Department and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has failed to take control of the DOJ, thereby allowing Democrats serving within it to use the agency as a political weapon against the chief executive.
“There’s such corruption. Before I got here, it’s from before I got here. It’s from the Obama administration,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt that aired on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday. “You look at what happened, they surveilled my campaign. It’s very simple.”
“When everybody sees what’s going on in the Justice Department, I always put ‘justice’ now with quotes, it’s a very, very sad day,” the president added.
Trump’s comments came in the aftermath of a federal jury in Northern Virginia reaching a guilty verdict in eight of the 18 counts of bank and tax fraud charges brought against his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Tuesday.
That same day, Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal criminal counts, including tax evasion, bank fraud, and breaking campaign finance laws regarding payments to two women on behalf of the 2016 Republican presidential candidate.
President @realDonaldTrump on if he would fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions pic.twitter.com/MiG6z18mmt
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 23, 2018
Trump said during the interview that he felt badly for Manafort and to a lesser extent Cohen, noting nothing the DOJ had targeted them for had anything to do with Russian collusion, and in the case of Manafort, even having to do with the 2016 race.
Regarding Cohen’s payments, Trump said, “My first question when I heard about it was, ‘Did they come out of the campaign?’ because that could be a little dicey,” Trump told Earhardt, but made clear that he reimbursed Cohen personally.
The president also pointed to opinions offered by legal experts like Alan Dershowitz that the payments in no way violated campaign finance laws.
Trump further noted that former President Barack Obama “had a massive campaign violation” but was able to get off with a fine “because he had a different attorney general and they do it a lot differently.”
Politico reported that Obama’s 2008 campaign was fined $375,000 for failing to properly file donations totaling in excess of $1.8 million.
Earhardt asked Trump to respond to reports that he plans to fire Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after the midterm elections.
“Jeff Sessions recused himself (from the Russia investigation), which he should not have done or he should have told me,” the president said. “Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn’t have put him in.”
“He took the job and then he said ‘I’m going to recuse myself. I said ‘What kind of a man is this?’” Trump said.
He also pointed to the double standard that appears in play at the DOJ, offering the example of former Democratic Party IT aide Imran Awan who pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges in July, but was sentenced to no jail time and no fine this week.
“I put in an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department.” -President @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/ARTg1JbeK2
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 23, 2018
Fox News reported that federal prosecutors did not advocate for jail time for the controversial aide who worked for former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz during the 2016 presidential race.
“He’s a Democrat. He got nothing,” Trump told Earhardt. “The reason he got nothing is the Dems are very strong in the Justice Department. I put in an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions…It’s sort of an incredible thing.”
In an interview with The New York Times last December, Trump contended that former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served as a co-chair on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, “totally protected” his chief executive after taking office.
“I don’t want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him,” Trump said. “When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”
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