Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, has been fired by Donald Trump, ending a long-running feud with the president over the Russia investigation.
Sessions said in a letter to Trump on Wednesday: “At your request, I am submitting my resignation”. He took credit for reversing a recent rise in violent crime and for taking a hardline stance on illegal immigration and gangs.
Trump said in a tweet that Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’s chief of staff, had been appointed acting attorney general and that a permanent replacement would be nominated later.
“We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well,” Trump said.
Sessions, a former US senator for Alabama, was one of the earliest supporters of , but almost immediately ran into controversy in the new administration.
The president repeatedly attacked Sessions in public, including via aggressive tweets, after the attorney general recused himself in March 2017, within two months of Trump taking office, from investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
That decision followed revelations that Sessions had held two undisclosed meetings with Russia’s then ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, the previous year.
Sessions did not disclose the conversations when asked under oath during his Senate confirmation hearing in early 2017 about possible contacts between Trump’s campaign and Moscow. The revelation led to calls for his resignation, but sessions hung on.
