US Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigns at Trump’s request

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US President Donald Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, less than 24 hours Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives.

Sessions informed Trump of his resignation in a letter sent to the president earlier in the day. In the letter, which was widely shared by US media, Sessions said he was resigning “at your [Trump’s] request”.

On Twitter, Trump thanked Sessions for his service and wished him well. He said Matthew G Whitaker, Sessions’s chief of staff, would become the acting attorney general until a replacement is announced, which the president said would come at a later date.

In the resignation letter, Sessions said he was honoured to have worked “to implement the law enforcement agenda” that formed a central part of the Trump campaign for the presidency.

“We did our part to restore immigration enforcement,” he wrote.

The former senator was a key figure in implementing Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.

He threatened sanctuary cities, which are cities and states that that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, with a withdrawal of federal funds and instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for those found crossing the border into the US without documents.