White House Hit With Several Shocking Reports In Less Than A Day
Trump’s relationships with Jeff Sessions, Hope Hicks and Jared Kushner have all come under fire.
An already complicated day for President Donald Trump’s administration was capped with several shocking reports Wednesday night.
The barrage of stories shed new light on the extent of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and raised questions about several officials in the president’s inner circle, including communications director Hope Hicks and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday evening that Mueller has questioned several witnesses about the president’s behavior toward Attorney General Jeff Sessions to determine whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice in the ongoing inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Unnamed sources familiar with the special counsel’s probe told the Post that Mueller had questioned people about Trump’s statements on Sessions last July and August.
The president sent out several tweets during that time roundly criticizing the attorney general as “beleaguered” and questioned the Justice Department for taking a “very weak position” on his former opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Trump also told The New York Times in July that Sessions shouldn’t have recused himself from the Russia investigation and that, if he’d known that would happen, he “would have picked somebody else” as attorney general. The Times reported last month that Mueller was looking into Trump’s efforts to fire Sessions last spring, but Wednesday’s report reflected a broader scope of the inquiry.
HuffPost has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Post’s article notes that Sessions has told his associates he has no plans to resign, despite the ongoing pressure from the White House.
The report was just one of several damaging stories coming from the White House on Wednesday night.
CNN’s Jim Acosta reported that Mueller has also been asking about comments made by Hope Hicks in 2016, just two days after Trump was elected. Hicks announced her resignation earlier Wednesday, according to several news outlets.