One day after the historic 2018 midterm elections, Jeff Sessions was pushed out as the country’s chief law enforcement officer after enduring nearly two years of blistering political and personal attacks from Donald Trump, which included lots of insults and name-calling that were viewed as unbecoming for a president.
Sessions submitted a one-page letter telling Donald Trump that he was resigning as Attorney General “at your request,” reported the New York Times.
The resignation comes after the most public and toxic relationship between a US president and a cabinet member in US history.
Trump initially attacked Sessions when he recused himself from the Russian investigation into the president’s campaign and suspected Russian interference.
Sessions’ decision to step away from the investigation, being undertaken by special counsel Robert Mueller, infuriated Trump, who repeatedly said that he would have never chosen Sessions for AG if he had known he would recuse himself.
Sessions has been an outspoken critic of cannabis legalization to the point that he overturned the Obama era Cole Memo that gave legal marijuana states the right to oversee their own programs, with no interference from federal authorities.
One never knows whether to laugh or cry as members of Trump’s often inappropriately chosen cabinet and staff members resign or are fired. What follows is usually more of the same…or worse.
“Jeff Sessions leaving DOJ might actually be bad for marijuana,” tweeted Tom Angell of Marijuana Moment. “There’s no way he could’ve accomplished a crackdown with his feud with POTUS and known zealousness against cannabis. A relatively unknown career prosecutor could get away with more moves against industry.”
While the implications for Russian investigation are also not immediately clear in that a new Trump-appointed Attorney General could easily fire Mueller and close down the probe. However, there is always the possibility that the House of Representatives – now in the hands of the Democrats – could hire Mueller as chief investigator into the same issues.
Meanwhile, Trump announced in a tweet that he was naming Sessions’ chief of staff Matthew Whitaker, a former United States attorney from Iowa, as acting attorney general.
Stay tuned to “As the White House Turns.” There are sure to be more purges in the coming episodes.
