Attorney General Jeff Sessions just resigned at the president’s request and, no, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is not making any kind of fuss about it:
Thx to AG Jeff Sessions for his service to our country both leading the DOJ & in the US Senate serving the ppl of Alabama I‘ve enjoyed working with him for decades. He is a true public servant + I appreciate his friendship
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 7, 2018
Any hope the Senate Democrats had of blocking or setting conditions for his replacement vanished on Election Night when the Republicans wiped out Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, Claire McCaskill and (probably) Bill Nelson. As an interim replacement, Trump has appointed Sessions’s chief of staff Matthew G. Whitaker.
We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018
No doubt, Trump will expect Whitaker to do what his boss wouldn’t, which is to protect him from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He can do this in a variety of ways, although it will probably cause mass resignations at the Department of Justice and possibly at the FBI, too.
Chuck Grassley doesn’t care. He’s like the honey badger.
Mueller promised to hold off on making any major announcements between Labor Day when he flipped Manafort and Election Day. I don’t know when Election Day really ends though, since there will be a Senate runoff election in Mississippi and possibly a runoff election in the Georgia governor’s race.