President Trump reminded voters Saturday morning he’d like to block a return to Washington for his former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“Big Senate Race in Alabama on Tuesday,” Mr. Trump tweeted, while urging voters to back former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville in the July 14 primary. “Jeff Sessions is a disaster who has let us all down. We don’t want him back in Washington!”
The winner of Alabama’s GOP primary runoff will face Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November. Mr. Jones rode a torrent of out-of-state money and scandals engulfing his GOP opponent to win a special election in 2017, and while he remains flush with cash he is considered the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent by most political analysts.
Mr. Sessions, whom all polls show trailing Mr. Tuberville, has sought to define the latter with unproven record, warning GOP primary voters of happened three years ago when former state supreme court justice Roy Moore was buried under allegations of sexual misconduct with a young woman decades ago.
Attacks against the frontrunner, Mr. Tuberville, have escalated in the campaign’s final weeks, with stories resurfacing about his light disciplinary touch with talented players at Auburn, and the extent of his involvement in a sketchy investment fund that went south and led to a fraud conviction against his former partner in the enterprise.
But limping into the runoff after a second place finish, Mr. Sessions has had to labor under Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Tuberville, and the president’s myriad reminders that Mr. Sessions almost immediately recused himself in the so-called Russian collusion investigation, leaving Mr. Trump vulnerable his first two years in office to bogus charges his campaign was in cahoots with the Kremlin.
On Saturday Mr. Sessions, who as a former senator was one of the first to throw himself behind Mr. Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign, again adopted a statesman-like tone in response to the latest White House Twitter salvo.
“I’ve taken the road less travelled,” his statement read. “My honor and integrity are far more important than these juvenile insults. Your scandal ridden candidate is too cowardly to debate.”
