U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he will continue in his job “as long as that is appropriate,” a day after President Donald Trump harshly criticized his decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.

In an Oval Office interview Wednesday, Trump told The New York Times he never would have appointed Sessions to head the Justice Department if he had known the former Alabama senator would step back from the Russia probe. 

“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.

Sessions, asked about what were called the president’s “disparaging remarks” at a Justice Department news conference Thursday, said, “I have the honor of serving as attorney general, it’s something that goes beyond any thought I would have for myself.  We love this job, we love this department, and I plan to continue to do so as long as that’s appropriate.”

Sessions’ statement at least temporarily quieted speculation he would quit, since the president’s criticism was seen in many quarters as a not too subtle request for his resignation. Sessions had offered to resign in May, just before Trump embarked on his first trip abroad. At that time, the resignation was refused.

Russia investigation

Sessions, one of Trump’s earliest supporters, recused himself from the Russia probe in March after it was revealed that he had had several contacts with Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, Sergei Kislyak, a central figure in the probe into allegations Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia to influence the election outcome.

After Sessions recused himself, his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, appointed another former F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, as special counsel to carry out the Russia probe. Committees in the Senate and House of Representatives are also conducting investigations.

If Sessions were to resign, experts say it could throw Mueller’s investigation into a state of uncertainty. The president would have the opportunity to nominate a replacement who would not have to recuse himself from oversight of the probe.

Trump has repeatedly insisted there was no collusion between him and Russians to influence the election.

“I have done nothing wrong. A special counsel should never have been appointed in this case,” he told the Times.

In a related development, Bloomberg News reported Thursday special counsel Mueller is expanding his investigation to include a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates. Bloomberg cited as its source a person familiar with the Mueller probe.

The FBI has been looking into the business affairs of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is scheduled, along with the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Red line

In the Times interview, Trump said if a special prosecutor expands the probe into his family finances unrelated to Russia, that would cross the line of what is acceptable.

“I would say, yes,” Trump said when asked if that would represent a “red line,” according to a transcript released late Wednesday. “I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia.”

Trump also suggested that former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey shared with him a file of alleged, but unconfirmed, compromising material about Trump in order to gain leverage.

“In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there,” Trump told the Times. The president fired Comey in May.

Comey testified before a U.S. Senate committee in June that he privately briefed Trump about the file in January because of the belief the material would soon be publicly reported and that the intelligence community should not keep knowledge of the material from the president-elect.

Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and then Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort met last year with a Russian attorney who said she had damaging information about Trump’s Democratic opponent in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton.

Trump downplayed the meeting in the Times interview, calling it “standard political stuff” and reaffirming his stance that he believes most politicians would have taken such a meeting.

Donald Trump Jr. has said the Russian lawyer had no information of value about Clinton and the talks ended quickly.

When asked about it by the Times, the president said it “must have been a very unimportant meeting, because I never even heard about it.”

Hours after his son set up the meeting in June 2016, Trump said he would soon be giving a major speech focused on Clinton. 

In Wednesday’s interview, he rejected the idea that the two events were linked, saying he “made many of those speeches.”

“There wasn’t much I could say about Hillary Clinton that was worse than what I was already saying,” Trump said.
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