Trump fires Attorney General Jeff Sessions

US President Donald Trump has fired Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. He wrote about this on his Twitter.

Trump named Matthew Whitaker, who previously served as Sessions Chief of Staff at the US Department of Justice, as acting Attorney General. Trump wrote that he would announce who would take the permanent position of Attorney General later.

According to Reuters, Sessions wrote in his resignation letter that he left office at Trump's request.

Sessions walked away from an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in March 2017, against requests from the White House. Then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took up the investigation, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller was also involved in the investigation. The agency notes that Trump regretted the appointment of Sessions.

In a book by journalist Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House, an excerpt from which was published by the Washington Post in September, Trump allegedly called Sessions "retarded" and "stupid Southerner."

As for the investigation into possible Russian interference in the elections, Mueller in February 2018 indicted 13 Russians, including businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin and his three companies. He called the US claim that Russia was involved in interference in the 2016 presidential election a fabrication. Russian authorities also deny all allegations.

Bloomberg reported that Mueller is preparing a final report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Mueller is also handling the case of former Donald Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort. The special prosecutor alleged that Manafort and his former business partner Robert Gates worked for the Party of Regions in Ukraine in 2006-2015, while laundering the money they earned through American and foreign corporations.

Gates pleaded guilty and testified against Manafort, who in September admitted to plotting against the United States and obstructing justice.