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Tuberville campaign calls for a public apology from Sessions

Tommy Tuberville’s U.S. Senate campaign on Monday called on former U.S. Attorney General and GOP candidate Jeff Sessions to publicly apologize for accusing President Donald Trump of “lying” about the details of Sessions’ appointment as attorney general.

“It is bad enough that Jeff Sessions turned tail and ran when Donald Trump needed him during the Russia collusion hoax, so publicly accusing the president of being a liar just adds insult to injury,” Tuberville’s Campaign Manager Paul Shashy said. “President Trump already has enough on his plate dealing with Coronavirus and reopening the economy, so he shouldn’t have to deal with a guy he fired questioning his integrity. Jeff Sessions owes the president a very public and humble apology.”

While appearing on the Fox & Friends morning show on Friday, Trump was asked if the Russia investigation would have taken place if current U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr had been in office at the time, and after responding it would have stopped “immediately,” the president recounted his earlier and reluctant appointment of Sessions to the same post.

“I didn’t want to make [Sessions] attorney general, but he was the first senator to endorse me,” Trump said. “So, I felt a little bit of an obligation. He came to see me four times, just begging me to be attorney general. He wasn’t, to me, equipped to be attorney general, but he just wanted it, wanted it, wanted it.”

“Jeff was just very weak and very sad,” Trump continued. “And when ‘Russia’ was mentioned, just the word ‘Russia,’ he immediately, instead of being a man and saying, ‘This is a hoax,’ he recused himself.”

Sessions responded to the President’s comments by issuing a statement that contradicted the president’s memory of events.

“I never begged for the job of Attorney General, not 4 times, not 1 time, not ever,” Sessions said in a statement. “The President offered me the job, I took it, I stood up for the truth and performed at the highest levels.”

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Shashy claimed that Sessions’ willingness to attack the president’s character in order to defend himself offers even more evidence that he remains disloyal to Trump and will not support him.

“Sessions can’t claim to support President Trump with one side of his mouth and then call him a liar with the other,” Shashy said. “That’s swampy double-talk from a career politician.”

Tommy Tuberville is a former head football coach at Auburn University. Jeff Sessions served as U.S. Attorney General under Trump from February 2017 to November 2018. Sessions served four terms in the U.S. Senate prior to that.

The two are running in the Republican primary runoff on July 14.

The winner will then face incumbent Sen. Doug Jones in November’s general election.

Brandon Moseley is a former reporter at the Alabama Political Reporter.

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