Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions is at the Justice Department by 6:15 a.m., when he exercises on a treadmill near his fifth-floor office, showers in an adjoining bathroom, microwaves instant oatmeal and hand-washes the bowl, then prepares for a daily 8:20 a.m. meeting with his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein. The televisions in both of their offices are nearly always dark, and neither man has a Twitter account. That does not mean they have missed the public criticism from President Trump, who was infuriated when Mr. Sessions recused himself from the government’s Russia investigation and when Mr. Rosenstein, who now oversees it, appointed Robert S. Mueller III as the inquiry’s special counsel. Yet even as the Justice Department has been under siege by Mr. Trump, Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein have sought to tune out the noise as they remake the department into the one that is most powerfully carrying out the president’s agenda. “We value the independence of the Justice Department,” Mr. Rosenstein said in an interview this week. The employees, he said, have been conditioned to “ignore anything that’s said by people outside of the department.” Mr. Rosenstein added, “Nobody is directing us and nobody is going to direct us about which cases to pursue.” But even if developing headlines are not rippling through the department in real time — “I’ve made a point of telling my people they should not be monitoring the breaking news,” Mr. Rosenstein said — the attacks b... Link to the full article to read more
Justice Dept., Under Siege From Trump, Plows Ahead With His Agenda - The New York Times
>