Trump says he should not have picked Sessions as attorney general

President says Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from Russia related matters was ‘very unfair ’

Trump made the  statement about Sessions in an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday. File photograph: John Locher/AP
Trump made the statement about Sessions in an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday. File photograph: John Locher/AP

US president Donald Trump has said he would never have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general had he known he would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. In an extraordinary denouncement of one of his earliest backers in Washington, Mr Trump said Mr Sessions' decision to recuse himself from all matters related to Russia was "very unfair to the president".

Mr Sessions announced in March that he would step aside from all Russian-related investigations after he was found to have not revealed meetings with the Russian ambassador. "Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else," Mr Trump said in a New York Times interview late on Wednesday.

Suzanne Lynch

Suzanne Lynch

Suzanne Lynch, a former Irish Times journalist, was Washington correspondent and, before that, Europe correspondent