Trump ordered lawyer to stop recusal

Donald Trump sits with Jeff Sessions. Photo / AP

At the behest of US President Donald Trump, the White House's top lawyer called Attorney-General Jeff Sessions shortly before he recused himself from the FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and tried to convince him not to do so, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

By then, one of the people said, Sessions had essentially already made up his mind to step aside, and though the lawyer's phone call sparked some additional discussions, the Attorney-General would ultimately turn over the probe to his top deputy.

But the lobbying effort by Don McGahn, first reported by the New York Times, could be an important episode in the very probe over which McGahn urged Sessions to maintain his authority.

After Sessions' recusal, his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to lead the investigation, and Mueller is now exploring - among other things - whether Trump might have attempted to obstruct justice and interfere with investigators' work. He is also investigating possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 election.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the special counsel declined to comment. McGahn and White House representatives did not return messages seeking comment.

Trump was taken aback by Sessions' recusal, and afterward, he raged to staffers and publicly that his Attorney-General had made the wrong choice. In July, he told the New York Times that if he had known Sessions would recuse himself, he "would have picked somebody else" to be attorney-general. At some point, Sessions offered to resign, but the President would not accept it.

Sessions has said he isolated himself from the Russia probe from almost the moment he took office.