United States

Sessions’s resignation, choosing a new attorney general, and the ongoing Mueller investigation

In the immediate aftermath of the midterm elections, Sessions resigned as attorney general at the request of Trump, who remained frustrated by Sessions’s recusal from the Russia investigation. Trump’s appointment of Matthew G. Whitaker, who had been critical of the special counsel’s investigation, as interim attorney general was widely criticized by Democrats. In February 2019 the Senate confirmed William Barr as attorney general, a position he had also held in the administration of Pres. George H.W. Bush. Barr, too, had earlier been critical of the special counsel’s investigation.

By early March 2019, 34 individuals and three companies had been criminally charged as a result of the Mueller investigation, including Manafort, who was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison after being convicted on charges that included mortgage fraud, foreign lobbying, and witness tampering. In addition to Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, others who were indicted included Rick Gates, who worked with Manafort and was a senior aide on Trump’s inauguration committee, and Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser of Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pled guilty to lying to Congress and to charges related to his involvement in paying hush money to two women who alleged that Trump had sex with them. Having cooperated with investigators but still facing a prison term of three years, Cohen gave high-profile televised testimony to Congress in February about his involvement with Trump, painting a broadly disparaging portrait of his former boss as a liar but offering no direct evidence of collusion by Trump or his associates in the Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election.