Corey Lewandowski said Wednesday that he thought President Donald Trump was going to have a “conversation” with Attorney General Jeff Sessions to discuss their differences, after a week of the President bashing Sessions without meeting with him personally, and with Sessions showing no signs of resigning.
Several reports Wednesday night indicated Sessions did not intend to resign in the face of harsh criticism from Trump, ostensibly over his recusal as attorney general from matters related to Russian meddling in the 2016 election. That decision eventually handed oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Lewandowski alluded to that point in an interview Wednesday with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
“The President has a legal authority to fire Robert Mueller if he wants to,” he said. “Now, Robert Mueller reports to Rod Rosenstein, but Rod Rosenstein could also be terminated. The Constitution is very clear: The President, as the chief law executive officer of this country, has the ability to hire and fire executives who work for him.”
Stephanopoulos asked directly: If Trump has so many problems with the way Sessions is performing his duties why not — instead of attacking him publicly while taking no real action — “sit down with him, man-to-man, face-to-face, and have it out?”
“Look, I think the President is going to have that conversation with Sen. Sessions,” Lewandowski said. “And to Jeff’s credit, there are things that he’s been doing, particularly with the Justice Department, cracking down on MS13, preventing additional border crossings, and enforcing the laws, that’s very important to the President, and I know that the President is thankful for the work that Jeff has done in that regard.”
In addition to Lewandowski, another prominent Trump surrogate has implied the same about Sessions: communications director Anthony Scaramucci said Tuesday that Trump “probably” wants Sessions gone.
Lewandowski, who is not formally part of the Trump administration, said Trump had still not decided if he was “going to, or not going to” fire Sessions.
“Donald Trump is letting Jeff Sessions do his job and letting Robert Mueller do his job,” he said a the end of the interview. “That’s what the President’s supposed to do.”
“Uh, I guess,” Stephanopoulos replied, pausing. “He’s letting Jeff Sessions do his job while attacking him every single day.”
Watch below via ABC News:
