Trump Calls Sessions’s Handling of Surveillance Abuse Allegations ‘Disgraceful’

But the president’s options are constrained, advisers said, because he recognizes that he would have a difficult time winning Senate confirmation for a replacement. Mr. Sessions served there for 20 years, and his former colleagues have bristled at Mr. Trump’s attacks. Any dismissal of Mr. Sessions would be taken by Democrats and even some Republicans as an effort to seize control of the Russia investigation and could trigger a bipartisan backlash.

The exchange on Wednesday began when the president lashed out at Mr. Sessions for seeming to suggest that the Justice Department’s inspector general would look into Republican charges of misconduct in the opening stage of the Russia investigation rather than opening his own examination.

“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”

Republicans have accused Justice Department and F.B.I. officials of abusing their powers while President Barack Obama was still in office by using information from a dossier prepared by a former British spy paid by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. Officials did not fully inform the court that issues warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, of the origin of the information, Republicans complained. Democrats have called that a distortion and distraction.

The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, was appointed by Mr. Obama in 2012, but previously worked for the Justice Department under Republican and Democratic presidents. He has already been investigating how James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director until Mr. Trump fired him last spring, handled the inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Mr. Sessions seemed to take umbrage at the president’s latest message. “We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary,” he said in his statement.

“As long as I am the attorney general,” he added, “I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”

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Mr. Sessions’s response, polite but pointed, was all the more striking because he had largely kept quiet after previous attacks by the president. Mr. Trump has never forgiven Mr. Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, a decision that helped lead to the appointment of Mr. Mueller. Mr. Trump has publicly called Mr. Sessions “weak” and said he would not have appointed him had he known Mr. Sessions would step aside.

His latest eruption was prompted by Mr. Sessions’s comment on Tuesday that if a FISA surveillance warrant was wrongfully obtained, the matter would be “investigated” by the department’s inspector general. His comment was interpreted as confirmation that the inspector general had opened a second official inquiry on top of the Comey review.

But Mr. Sessions only meant to reiterate what he said after a memo drafted by House Republicans was released alleging abuse of the FISA process. At the time, Mr. Sessions said he would “forward to appropriate D.O.J. components all information I receive from Congress regarding this.”

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The nuance was lost on Mr. Trump, who among other things did not seem to understand that an attorney general cannot order an inspector general to investigate anything, only refer information.

“The president’s tweet reveals that he really doesn’t understand how the government works and how the Justice Department works,” said Michael Bromwich, a former department inspector general.

He added that the inspector general’s office has a reputation for professionalism. “It’s incredibly demoralizing to have the chief executive of the government not only not understand and appreciate what you do, but attack what you do on a constant basis,” Mr. Bromwich said.

Inspectors general at cabinet agencies are kept separate to preserve their independence. Paul Light, a New York University professor and specialist on the offices, recalled that President Ronald Reagan fired all of the inspectors general but was forced by Congress to rehire some of them. “They have protections in statutes against arbitrary dismissal,” he said.

After Mr. Trump’s tweet, Mr. Horowitz, the inspector general, received support from Republicans, including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that confirmed him.

“I have complete confidence in him and hope he is given the time, the resources and the independence to complete his work,” said Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

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Several Republicans expressed dismay at the president’s continued campaign against Mr. Sessions. “It’s kind of mind-boggling that he would call out his own attorney general,” former Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah said on Fox News.

Representative Peter T. King of New York, also on Fox, expressed sympathy with Mr. Trump’s desire for a second investigation run by Mr. Sessions, but added that the president should not berate him. “Jeff Sessions is loyal to the president and he’s one of the first to support him, and he’s often in very difficult positions and I think he’s trying to reconcile as best as he can,” he said.

Michael W. McConnell, a former appellate judge now at Stanford Law School, said a president has every right to direct his attorney general.

“What raises eyebrows is the form and tone of the tweet, which appears to be a commentary on the attorney general’s decisions rather than an exercise of presidential supervisory authority,” he said. “Mr. Trump is the president. If he wants something done differently, he should order that it be done differently, with serious reflection, through proper channels and in the proper form.”

Jamil Jaffer, a law professor at George Mason University and former associate White House counsel under President George W. Bush, said social media was not the best way to direct action by an attorney general. “The president has a lot of tools that are a lot more effective than putting the A.G. on blast on Twitter,” he said.

But Mr. Trump got support from other quarters. Representative Lee Zeldin of New York and a dozen other Republicans sent a letter to Mr. Sessions on Wednesday urging him to appoint a special counsel to investigate the handling of Mrs. Clinton’s case and the FISA warrant targeting Mr. Page.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, suggested that Mr. Sessions had never really supported Mr. Trump in the first place.

“@USAGSessions must be part of the Bush/Romney/McCain Republican Establishment,” he wrote on Twitter. “He probably supported @realDonaldTrump early in campaign to hide who he really is. Or he could just be a coward.”

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Hope Hicks to Leave Post as White House Communications Director

“Hope is outstanding and has done great work for the last three years,” Mr. Trump said. “She is as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person. I will miss having her by my side, but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, I totally understood. I am sure we will work together again in the future.”

But as the person who spent the most time with Mr. Trump, Ms. Hicks became enmeshed in a number of controversies over the past year, including key aspects of the investigations by Congress and the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

Her resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee, telling the panel that in her job, she had occasionally been required to tell white lies but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

And in recent weeks, her personal life drew attention when it was reported that she had dated Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary who resigned under pressure over allegations that he had abused his two former wives.

Multiple White House aides said that Ms. Hicks’s leaving the White House was unrelated to her appearance before the House committee. They said that she had told a small group of people in the days before the session that she had planned to resign.

Ms. Hicks’s departure will coincide with those of other people who have been close to the Trump family members in the White House. Reed Cordish, a policy adviser and friend of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, is leaving his role; Josh Raffel, a press aide whose initial portfolio was primarily focused on Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, is also leaving; and Dina Powell, who had been a deputy national security adviser who was close to Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, left weeks ago.

Their absence will deprive Mr. Trump and his daughter and son-in-law of many of the aides who served as crucial buffers and sounding boards as a turbulent and politically uncertain year begins.

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Among the things Ms. Hicks had advised Mr. Trump, according to multiple White House officials, was to tone down some of his Twitter posts or stop sending them altogether, an effort that had mixed results. She also had the ability to stop Mr. Trump from focusing on an issue he was angry about, and sometimes shield other members of the staff from Mr. Trump’s anger.

While Ms. Hicks and Mr. Kelly developed a functional relationship, he considered her access to the president to be a challenge to the command-and-control system he tried to enforce, according to several White House aides.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Kelly echoed the president’s praise.

“I quickly realized what so many have learned about Hope: She is strategic, poised and wise beyond her years,” Mr. Kelly said. “She became a trusted adviser and counselor, and did a tremendous job overseeing the communications for the president’s agenda including the passage of historic tax reform.”

As communications director, Ms. Hicks worked to stabilize, to some extent, a fractious press department of about 40 people who were often at odds with one another in 2017. She maintained one of the lowest public profiles of anyone to ever hold the job, declining to sit for interviews or appear on the podium in the White House briefing room.

Even those in the West Wing who did not like her approach feared her power, and worried about crossing her. But some former Trump advisers sounded hopeful that a new staff configuration might create a more consistent approach to governing, in contrast to the way the White House has functioned for the past year, when people close to the president could easily influence him.

Dan Scavino Jr., the White House digital director, is the only member of the president’s original campaign team still working directly for Mr. Trump.

It was not immediately clear who will fill Ms. Hicks’s role, although several White House officials and external advisers said they expect that Mercedes Schlapp — who Mr. Kelly brought in as a ballast against Ms. Hicks’s influence when he took over the job — will be elevated in some way.

Ms. Hicks had been considering leaving the White House for several months. She told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington, and that there would never be a perfect moment to leave, according to White House aides. Ms. Hicks told the president of her plans on Wednesday afternoon.

Her departure date was unclear, but it is likely to be in the next few weeks. She has not said what she will do next.

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