“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,” Trump told the New York Times in a shockingly candid interview Wednesday, even for the president.
But if Trump had been listening to anything Sessions said publicly about how he would handle a Russia investigation involving the president, Trump could have seen this coming.
Sessions didn't explicitly promise to recuse himself from any potential FBI Russia investigation in his January confirmation hearing to oversee the Justice Department. But he did promise to seek legal counsel to avoid the conflict of interest of serving on the Trump campaign and then in the Trump administration. And that's exactly what happened.
In early March, Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation on the advice of Justice Department ethics officials, saying, “They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation.” In late March, then-FBI Director James B. Comey confirmed to Congress that they were investigating potential Trump collusion.
"I am very disappointed with the attorney general. But we will see what happens. Time will tell.."