A former secretary of homeland security defended Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the President went on the offensive during an interview with the New York Times Wednesday, saying he wouldn’t have hired Session if he had known the attorney general was going to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.
“He recused himself because he was involved in the campaign, at least he said that’s why he was recusing himself. It was not because of his Senate testimony about contacts with Russian government officials and basically Jeff Session had no choice,” Jeh Johnson said Thursday, appearing on CNN.
He said President Donald Trump “brought that risk” to his administration by hiring someone who worked for his campaign.
“The President knew that he was hiring someone to be the chief law enforcement officer who had been involved in his campaign, so there’s a certain level of risk you assume by doing that,” he said. “And, look, there are all kinds of ways to express displeasure with one of your cabinet officers. This was really throwing your own attorney general under the bus, which is obviously not good for his morale.”
He said he was surprised by Trump’s comments and that he had not “ever seen a president throw under the bus one of his own cabinet officers in this way, so very publicly.”
