In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday that sent shock waves through Washington, President Donald Trump slammed his own attorney general and blasted former FBI Director James Comey and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Trump told The New York Times that he would never have nominated Jeff Sessions as the country's top cop if he had known he would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
"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 said.
That recusal led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to head the probe into whether Russia attempted to influence the presidential election. The probe is expected to look into whether the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., acted improperly in meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign who claimed to have dirt on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
"Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president," Trump said. "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 I'm not going to take you.' It's extremely unfair — and that's a mild word — to the president."
Trump also criticized Sessions for the testimony he gave during his confirmation hearing. Sessions told the panel he had not met with any Russians during the campaign even though he had met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
"Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers," Trump said. "He gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren't."
According to the Times, Trump also was critical of former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May, saying Comey tried to use a fake dossier on Trump to hold onto his job.
"In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there," Trump said.
Asked if he thought Comey shared the dossier that supposedly held salacious allegations about him as leverage to keep his job, Trump replied, "Yeah, I think so. In retrospect."
Trump said he challenged the allegations immediately.
"When he brought it to me, I said this is really, made-up junk," Trump said. "I didn't think about any of it. I just thought about man, this is such a phony deal."
Comey later said he shared the information privately with Trump after his election because the document had been circulating in media circles and he thought the then-president elect should be aware of it before anyone in the media published it.
Trump also said Comey lied about him threatening Comey's job if he did not end the probe of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
"I don’t remember even talking to him about any of this stuff," Trump said. "He said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, OK?"
Trump slammed Mueller, saying his probe was getting into areas not related to the Russia investigation, but said he did not intend to order the Justice Department to fire him.
Asked whether Mueller would be crossing a red line if he looked into his family's finances not related to Russia, Trump replied, "I would say yes," though he would not say what action he would take.
"I think that's a violation," Trump said. "Look, this is about Russia."
Trump said he does not believe he is personally is a target of the probe, though reports have indicated he is being looked into over firing Comey.
"I don't think we're under investigation," Trump said. "I'm not under investigation. For what? I didn't do anything wrong."
Trump said he interviewed Mueller about replacing Comey shortly before Mueller was named special prosecutor by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
"He was up here and he wanted the job," Trump said of Mueller. Then, after Mueller 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 haven't said, but I will at some point."
One of those, he said, was the appointment of Rosenstein as second-in-command at Justice since he had worked in Baltimore.
"There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any," Trump said.
Further, Rosenstein had first recommended Comey be fired, then appointed Mueller, who might be looking into whether Trump obstructed justice in firing Comey.
"Well, that's a conflict of interest," Trump said. "Do you know how many conflicts of interests there are?"