Attorney General Jeff Sessions has submitted his letter of resignation to the White House. "Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. President," he closes.
From NPR:
Jeff Sessions, the president's earliest and most fervent supporter in Congress, stepped down as attorney general Wednesday after brutal criticism from the president, bringing an abrupt end to his controversial tenure as the nation's top law enforcement officer.
Sessions, 71, lasted not quite two years in the job. But in that brief period, the former Alabama senator managed to usher in a new era at the Justice Department.
Sessions threatened so-called sanctuary cities with the loss of federal funding and announced a "zero tolerance policy" for people who cross the southern U.S. border illegally.
He decried a looming wave of violent crime across the country, even though criminologists maintain murders and assaults remain near historic lows in most places.
He ordered federal prosecutors to seek the most serious charges and stiff prison sentences against drug criminals, a stark reversal of former President Barack Obama's most prominent and bipartisan justice policy.
He presided over a rollback in investigations of local police. He rescinded policies that directed federal prosecutors to go after only the biggest cases involving marijuana in states where the drug is legal. And he recommitted to using private prisons for U.S. inmates and detainees.
