President Donald Trump on Wednesday threw Attorney General Jeff Sessions under the bus again, tweeting that he wished he had picked someone else to lead the Justice Department.
Trump referred to Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) Wednesday appearance on “CBS This Morning,” in which he defended the president’s frustration with Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe.
“I would be frustrated, too,” Trump quoted Gowdy as saying. “There are lots of really good lawyers in the country, he could have picked somebody else!”
Trump added: “And I wish I did!”
Sessions, an early supporter of Trump’s 2016 presidential run, has been the subject of Trump’s ire since he announced his recusal in March 2017 from a federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Despite Trump’s public humiliation campaign against Sessions, he reportedly rejected an offer from Sessions to resign last spring.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Although Trump seemed to embrace Gowdy’s comment Wednesday, the Republican lawmaker has previously criticized Trump’s use of Twitter to bash Sessions.
“Doing this publicly, I don’t think helps our justice system,” Gowdy said in July 2017 after Trump attacked a “beleaguered” Sessions on Twitter for not investigating Hillary Clinton.
“I think you ought to praise in public and critique in private,” Gowdy said. “You shouldn’t make personnel decisions, particularly at the Cabinet level, via Twitter. ... The attorney general doesn’t work for the president. He works for a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales.”
During an appearance Tuesday on Fox News, Gowdy contradicted Trump’s recent claims that the FBI “spied” on his campaign under the orders of President Barack Obama.
Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the FBI acted appropriately when it used an informant to gather information about Trump’s campaign advisers who allegedly had suspicious contacts linked to Russia.
“I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump,” Gowdy said on Fox News.
This story has been updated throughout.