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 team. Professionals; will operate according to the law." Sessions also said, "I never saw anything that was improper," which Porter thought was noteworthy because it did not fit with the previous discussion about Clinton. Porter understood Sessions to be reassuring the President that he was on the President's team.

At the end of December, the President told the New York Times it was "too bad" that Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation. When asked whether Holder had been a more loyal Attorney General to President Obama than Sessions was to him, the President said, "I don't want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him. When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I'Il be honest." Later in January, the President brought up the idea of replacing Sessions and told Porter that he wanted to "clean house" at the Department of Justice. In a meeting in the White House residence that Porter attended on January 27, 2018, Porter recalled that the President talked about the great attorneys he had in the past with successful win records, such as Roy Cohn and Jay Goldberg, and said that one of his biggest failings as President was that he had not surrounded himself with good attorneys, citing Sessions as an example. The President raised Sessions's recusal and brought up and criticized the Special Counsel's investigation.

Over the next several months, the President continued to criticize Sessions in tweets and media interviews and on several occasions appeared to publicly encourage him to take action in the Russia investigation despite his recusal. On June 5, 2018, for example, the President