President Trump said on Wednesday that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision very unfair to the president.
In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessionss decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else, Mr. Trump said.
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the president also accused James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired in May, of trying to leverage a dossier of compromising material to keep his job. Mr. Trump criticized both the acting F.B.I. director who has been filling in since Mr. Comeys dismissal and the deputy attorney general who recommended it. And he took on Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel now leading the investigation into Russian meddling in last years election.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller was running an office rife with conflicts of interest and warned that investigators would cross a red line if they delve into Trump family finances unrelated to Russia. Mr. Trump never said he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, nor would he outline circumstances under which he might do so. But he left open the possibility as he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political toll in the six months since he took office.
Describing a newly disclosed informal conversation he had with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during a dinner of world leaders in Germany earlier this month, Mr. Trump said they talked for about 15 minutes, mostly about pleasantries. But Mr. Trump did say that they talked about adoptions. Mr. Putin banned American adoptions of Russian children in 2012 after the United States enacted sanctions on Russians accused of human rights abuses, an issue that remains a sore point in relations with Moscow.
Mr. Trump acknowledged that it was interesting that adoptions came up since his son, Donald Trump Jr., said that was the topic of a meeting he had with several Russians with ties to the Kremlin during last years campaign. Even though emails show that the session had been set up to pass along incriminating information about Hillary Clinton, the president said he did not need such material from Russia about Mrs. Clinton last year because he already had more than enough.
But Mr. Trump left little doubt during the interview that the Russia investigation remained a sore point. His pique at Mr. Sessions, in particular, seemed fresh even months after the attorney generals recusal. Mr. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trumps candidacy and was rewarded with a key Cabinet slot, but has been more distant from the president lately.
Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president, he added. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, Thanks, Jeff, but Im not going to take you. Its extremely unfair and thats a mild word to the president.
Mr. Trump also faulted Mr. Sessions for his testimony during Senate confirmation hearings when Mr. Sessions said he had not met with any Russians even though he had met at least twice with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers, the president said. He gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they werent.
In the interview, Mr. Trump said he believes Mr. Comey told him about the dossier to implicitly make clear he had something to hold over the president. In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there, Mr. Trump said. As leverage? Yeah, I think so, Mr. Trump said. In retrospect.
The president dismissed the assertions in the dossier: When he brought it to me, I said this is really, made-up junk. I didnt think about any of it. I just thought about man, this is such a phony deal.
Mr. Trump refuted Mr. Comeys claim that in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb. 14, the president asked him to end the investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Comey testified before Congress that Mr. Trump kicked the vice president, attorney general and several other senior administration officials out of the room before having the discussion with Mr. Comey.
I dont remember even talking to him about any of this stuff, Mr. Trump said. He said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, O.K.?
Mr. Trump was also critical of Mr. Mueller, a longtime former F.B.I. director, reprising some of his past complaints that lawyers in his office contributed money to Mrs. Clintons campaign. He noted that he actually interviewed Mr. Mueller to replace Mr. Comey just before his appointment as special counsel.
He was up here and he wanted the job, Mr. Trump said. After he was named special counsel, I said, What the hell is this all about? Talk about conflicts. But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I havent said, but I will at some point.
Asked if Mr. Muellers investigation would cross a red line if it expands to look at his familys finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, I would say yes. He would not say what he would do about it. I think thats a violation. Look, this is about Russia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-sessions-russia.htmlHe complained that Mr. Rosenstein had in effect been on both sides when it came to Mr. Comey. The deputy attorney general recommended Mr. Comey be fired but then appointed Mr. Mueller, who may be investigating whether the dismissal was an obstruction of justice. Well, thats a conflict of interest, Mr. Trump said. Do you know how many conflicts of interests there are?
As for Andrew G. McCabe, the acting F.B.I. director, the president suggested that he too had a conflict. Mr. McCabes wife, Jill McCabe, received nearly $500,000 in 2015 during a losing campaign for the Virginia state Senate from a political action committee affiliated with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton.
