JEFF SESSIONS/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump responded to news of special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2017 appointment by telling then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he was ‘fucked,’ according to a redacted version of Mueller’s report released Thursday [4—18-19]. ‘Oh my God,’ the president told Sessions, according to the report. ‘This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.’ Trump went on to lambaste his attorney general for allowing Mueller’s appointment to happen, telling Sessions that the attorney general’s job had been to protect him and that Sessions had ‘let [him] down.’ The president, according to Mueller’s report, asked Sessions: ‘How could you let this happen, Jeff?’ The interaction was recorded in notes taken by Session’s chief of staff, Jody Hunt. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized Mueller to head the investigation in May 2017 in the wake of Trump’s move to fire then-FBI Director James Comey, who had been overseeing the bureau’s probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Mueller’s appointment came after the president conceded that he had dismissed Comey with the Russia investigation weighing on his mind, an explanation that contradicted the White House’s initial explanation of the firing.”
–Katie Galioto, “‘I’m f—ed’: Trump called Mueller appointment ‘the end of my presidency’,” Politico, April 18, 2019 5:17 pm