WASHINGTON: President Don­ald Trump turned up the heat on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, launching a fresh Twitter tirade against him while musing privately about firing the man who was the first US senator to endorse his candidacy.

Pressure on the nation’s top law-enforcement to resign mounted by the hour, even as fellow Republicans began to push back against Trump’s extraordinary public rebuke of his Cabinet officer.

The president’s latest broadside came in the form of early morning tweet: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!” Trump’s intensifying condemnation of Sessions has fuelled speculation that the attorney general may step down even if Trump opts not to fire him though several people close to the former Alabama senator have said he does not plan to quit.

The president’s anger over Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the government’s investigation of Russian meddling in the US election burst into public view Monday when Trump referred to Sessions in a tweet as “beleaguered.”

Privately, Trump has speculated to allies in recent days about the potential consequences of firing Sessions, according to three people who have recently spoken to the president.

But the president’s ongoing criticism of Sessions drew a fiery response from one of his former Senate colleagues on Tuesday, suggesting that all Republicans may not fall in line behind any effort to oust the attorney general.

“Jeff Sessions is one of the most decent people I’ve ever met in my political life,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. “President Trump’s tweet today suggesting Attorney General Sessions pursue prosecution of a former political rival is highly inappropriate.” Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and others also voiced support of their former colleague. But the White House only cranked up the pressure on Sessions, risking inflaming the Senate on the day it was set to move on the GOP healthcare plan.

Anthony Scaramucci, the president’s new communications director, said in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt that Trump is “obviously frustrated” and that the two men “need to work this thing out.”

Scaramucci then replied “you’re probably right” when Hewitt said it was clear that Trump wants Sessions gone.

And White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that the president was “frustrated and disappointed” with Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe.

That frustration certainly hasn’t gone away. And I don’t think it will,” she said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said merely that “the president gets to decide what his personnel is.” Trump often talks about making staff changes without following through, so those who have spoken with the president cautioned that a change may not be imminent or happen at all.

Trump’s Twitter onslaught began on Monday, when he deemed Sessions “beleaguered” and asked why he wasn’t “looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?” His rapid-fire postings resumed at daybreak on Tuesday, with the president wondering aloud about Sessions’ “VERY weak” position on “Hillary Clinton crimes.” And then again, as he tweeted about “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign quietly working to boost Clinton. So where is the investigation A.G.” But despite his campaign promises to “lock her up,” it was Trump himself who signalled during the transition that he was not going to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Clinton.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2017