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<\/a>WASHINGTON \u2014 Few Republicans were quicker to embrace President Trump\u2019s campaign last year than Jeff Sessions, and his reward was one of the most prestigious jobs in America. But more than four months into his presidency, Mr. Trump has grown sour on Mr. Sessions, now his attorney general, blaming him for various troubles that have plagued the White House.<\/p>\n
The discontent was on display on Monday in a series of stark early-morning postings on Twitter<\/a> in which the president faulted his own Justice Department for its defense of his travel ban<\/a> on visitors from certain predominantly Muslim countries. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Sessions\u2019s department of devising a \u201cpolitically correct\u201d version of the ban \u2014 as if the president had nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n In private, the president\u2019s exasperation has been even sharper. He has intermittently fumed for months over Mr. Sessions\u2019s decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year\u2019s election, according to people close to Mr. Trump who insisted on anonymity to describe internal conversations. In Mr. Trump\u2019s view, they said, it was that recusal that eventually led to the appointment of a special counsel who took over the investigation.<\/p>\n Behind-the-scenes frustration would not be unprecedented in the Oval Office. Other presidents have become estranged from the Justice Department over time, notably President Bill Clinton, who bristled at Attorney General Janet Reno\u2019s decisions to authorize investigations into him and his administration, among other things. But Mr. Trump\u2019s tweets on Monday made his feelings evident for all to see and raised questions about how he is managing his own administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey wholly undercut the idea that there is some rational process behind the president\u2019s decisions,\u201d said Walter E. Dellinger, who served as acting solicitor general under Mr. Clinton. \u201cI believe it is unprecedented for a president to publicly chastise his own Justice Department.\u201d<\/p>\n In his Twitter posts, Mr. Trump complained that his original executive order barring visitors from select Muslim-majority nations and refugees from around the world was revised<\/a> in hopes of passing legal muster after it was struck down by multiple federal courts. The second version, however, has also been blocked<\/a>, and last week the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then he added<\/a>, \u201cThe Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court \u2014 & seek much tougher version!\u201d<\/p>\n But the messages caused considerable head scratching around Washington since it was Mr. Trump who signed the revised executive order and, presumably, agreed to the legal strategy in the first place. His posts made it sound like the Justice Department was not part of his administration.<\/p>\n The White House had little to add to the president\u2019s messages on Monday. Asked why Mr. Trump signed the revised order if he did not support it, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said he did it only to convince a California-based appeals court. \u201cHe was looking to, again, match the demands laid out by the Ninth Circuit and, for the purpose of expediency, to start looking at the best way possible to move that process forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Alan M. Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School who has frequently defended Mr. Trump on cable news, said the president was clearly voicing frustration with Mr. Sessions. But he said it was not clear to him that it was a personal issue as opposed to an institutional one with the office.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he\u2019s saying is, \u2018I\u2019m the president, I\u2019m the tough guy, I wanted a very tough travel ban and the damn lawyers are weakening it\u2019 \u2014 and clients complain about lawyers all the time,\u201d Mr. Dershowitz said. \u201cI see this more as a client complaining about his lawyer. The lawyer in this case happens to be Jeff Sessions.\u201d<\/p>\n David B. Rivkin Jr., a lawyer who served in the White House and Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, said Mr. Trump clearly looked at the case from the lens of a businessman who did not get his money\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s unhappy when the results don\u2019t come in,\u201d Mr. Rivkin said. \u201cI\u2019m sure he was convinced to try the second version, and the second iteration did not do better than the first iteration, so the lawyers in his book did not do a good job. It\u2019s understandable for a businessman.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Sessions and the Justice Department remained silent on Monday. But at least one lawyer close to the administration suggested that there was consternation in the department over the president\u2019s messages. George T. Conway III, who until last week was Mr. Trump\u2019s choice<\/a> for assistant attorney general for the civil division and whose wife, Kellyanne Conway, is the president\u2019s counselor, posted a Twitter message suggesting that Mr. Trump\u2019s tweets \u201ccertainly won\u2019t help\u201d persuade five justices on the Supreme Court \u2014 the majority needed \u2014 to uphold the travel ban.<\/p>\n In subsequent posts, Mr. Conway said that \u201cevery sensible lawyer\u201d in the White House Counsel\u2019s Office and \u201cevery political appointee\u201d at the Justice Department would \u201cagree with me (as some have already told me).\u201d Mr. Conway stressed that he strongly supports Mr. Trump \u2014 \u201cand, of course, my wonderful wife\u201d \u2014 and was making his points because the president\u2019s supporters \u201cshould not be shy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n The frustration over the travel ban might be a momentary episode were it not for the deeper resentment Mr. Trump feels toward Mr. Sessions, according to people close to the president. When Mr. Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Mr. Trump learned about it only when he was in the middle of another event, and he publicly questioned the decision.<\/p>\n A senior administration official said Mr. Trump has not stopped burning about the decision, in occasional spurts, toward Mr. Sessions. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who was selected by Mr. Sessions and filled in when it came to the Russia investigation, ultimately appointed Robert S. Mueller III<\/a>, a former F.B.I. director, as special counsel to lead the probe.<\/p>\n In fact, much of the past two months of discomfort and self-inflicted pain for Mr. Trump can be tied in some way back to that recusal. Mr. Trump felt blindsided by Mr. Sessions\u2019s decision and unleashed his fury at aides in the Oval Office the next day, according to four people familiar with the event. The next day was his fateful tweet about President Barack Obama <\/a>conducting a wiretap<\/a> of Trump Tower during the campaign, an allegation that was widely debunked.<\/p>\n However, Mr. Trump is said to be aware that firing people now, on the heels of dismissing James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, would be risky. He has invested care and meticulous attention to the next choice of an F.B.I. director in part because he will not have the option of firing another one. The same goes for Mr. Sessions, these people said.<\/p>\n Mr. Dershowitz said he thought any frustration over Mr. Sessions\u2019s recusal, like the travel ban, was probably not personal. \u201cI think that\u2019s also institutional,\u201d he said. \u201cAlmost any A.G. would recuse himself. I think he\u2019s railing against lawyers.\u201d<\/p>\n