WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, a day after congressional elections, and vowed to fight if the US House of Representatives new Democratic majority launches probe into his administration.

Sessions — an early Trump supporter who ran afoul of the president by recusing himself from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 White House campaign — said in a letter to Trump that he had submitted his resignation “at your request”.

The 71-year-old former senator was informed on Wednesday morning by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in a phone call that it was time to go, said an aide.

Sessions departure was the first in what could be a string of high-profile exits as Trump reshapes his team to gird for his own 2020 re-election effort. The Republican president named Sessions chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, as acting attorney general and said he would nominate someone for the job soon.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who could be the next speaker, called the ouster a “blatant attempt” to undermine the Russia probe and urged Whitaker to recuse himself from any involvement in a statement posted to Twitter.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2018