Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to be out of the dog house.
After weeks of speculation regarding Sessions’ job security, President Trump took to Twitter — his preferred method of communication — to praise the attorney general on Saturday for cracking down on illegal leaks of classified information.
“After many years of LEAKS going on in Washington, it is great to see the A.G. taking action!” Trump wrote. “For National Security, the tougher the better!”
Sessions was widely considered to be on thin ice after Trump repeatedly attacked him out of frustration over the Russia investigation. Trump told the New York Times in an interview that if he had known that Sessions would have recused himself from the Russia investigation, he would have picked a different attorney general. He later criticized Sessions for not re-opening the investigation into former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Sessions initiated on Friday a new crackdown on the flood of illegal leaks coming out of the executive branch.
“In the first six months of this administration, DOJ has already received nearly as many criminal referrals involving unauthorized disclosures of classified information as we received in the last three years combined,” Sessions said at a press conference announcing the crackdown.
The day before, The Washington Post published classified transcripts of Trump’s phone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia. Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said the leaks were “disgraceful” and called for a congressional investigation.
Trump’s praise for Sessions follows reports that new White House chief of staff John Kelly assured Sessions that his job was safe.