Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is pledging his support for Attorney General Jeff Sessions despite President Donald Trump's striking public criticisms that come months after appointing him to the position.
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a credit to the Department of Justice," Toomey said in a statement issued Tuesday. "He has worked tirelessly to protect our neighborhoods from violent crime, end dangerous sanctuary cities, defend the rule of law, provide for victims of crime and ensure every American is treated fairly. I continue to support him as Attorney General of the United States."
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Toomey joins many other conservative politicians from across the country who vowed to continue support for Sessions, who himself was a strong supporter of Trump throughout his campaign for president and was once rumored to be chosen as vice president.
The relationship between Trump and Sessions has greatly soured since Sessions recused himself from an investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Trump has slammed Sessions in media interviews and on social media as of late, noting that he took "a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes" in a July 25 tweet.
The president also remarked that "time will tell" what will happen to Sessions during a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday.
"He should not have recused himself [from the Russia investigation] almost immediately after he took office, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and I would have quite simply picked somebody else," Trump said during the press conference, NBC News reported.
Sessions spoke last week at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, where he urged officials to "reconsider carefully the harm they are doing to their residents" by maintaining a sanctuary city status. Toomey remarked on Twitter following Sessions' visit that the attorney general was "right" to issue such a warning.
Trump dismissed former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates in January following her instruction to the Justice Department to not defend Trump's executive order banning immigrants from a select few predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S.
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer resigned from his position just last week following the takeover of Anthony Scaramucci, whose background primarily falls in finance, as White House communications director.