Top Republican says there 'will be holy hell to pay' if Trump fires Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Mr Sessions has said he plans to stay in his job 'as long as that is appropriate'

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (AP)

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has declared that if Donald Trump fires his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, “there will be holy hell to pay”.

Over the past week, the President has verbally attacked Mr Sessions, making clear that he is angry with the Attorney General for recusing himself from a probe into possible ties between Trump campaign advisers and the Russian government.

The clashes over the future of Mr Sessions – who landed in El Salvador on Thursday as part of a visit aimed at strengthening cooperation over the fight against street gangs – are just one of a number of clashes within the Trump administration that show little sign of resolution.

Mr Sessions has seen his star fall dramatically in the eyes of President Trump in a sign of how quickly reputations can be made and lost within his administration.

The Attorney General has said that he will serve as long as Mr Trump wants him too but has acknowledged that it has not been the "best week" in his relationship with the President.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Mr Sessions said from El Salvador: “I serve at the pleasure of the President. I've understood that from the day I took the job."

However, he added that he and Mr Trump have a “harmony of values and beliefs”.

"The President wants him to do his job, do it properly", the White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Thursday, hardly offering a ringing endorsement of Mr Sessions. "He wants him to be tough on the intelligence leaks and he wants him to move forward."

The White House has said that Mr Trump "likes healthy competition" within his administration, and Mr Trump's new Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci has also wasted no time in going after Chief of Staff Reince Priebus as a suspected “leaker” inside the West Wing in a pull-no-punches interview that further highlighted the personality clashes and internal turmoil of Mr Trump's presidency.

Mr Scaramucci's appearance on CNN’s New Day news programme came after he had mentioned Mr Priebus in an angry tweet about leaks, before deleting said tweet.

The two men have had a fraught relationship since early in the Trump administration, when Mr Scaramucci was unable to get a White House job, with Mr Priebus reportedly not supporting his appointment.

“When I put out a tweet and I put Reince’s name in a tweet, they’re all making the assumption that it’s him because journalists know who the leakers are,” Mr Scaramucci said. “So if Reince wants to explain he’s not a leaker, let him do that. But let me tell you about myself. I’m a straight shooter, and I’ll go right to the heart of the matter.”

Mr Scaramucci was brought in help stabilise the White House’s press operations, which had been under fire during the tenure of former Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and has been quick to try and clarify his relationship with Mr Priebus. Other perhaps not in the way that might be expected.

“Some brothers are like Cain and Abel,” he said, referencing the biblical sons of Adam and Eve – one of which killed the other," he told CNN. “Other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I don't know if this is repairable or not. That will be up to the President.“

While confrontations between White House staff have mostly been left without comment by those in Congress, Republicans have not taken kindly to the repeated attacks by Mr Trump against Mr Sessions which have fuelled speculation that the Attorney General would be fired or step down.

Charles Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a tweet on Wednesday that if the President fires Mr Sessions, there will be no confirmation hearing for a new Attorney General in 2017.

“Everybody in D.C. [should be] warned that the agenda for the judiciary Comm is set for rest of 2017. Judges first subcabinet 2nd / AG no way,” he wrote.

Mr Graham told reporters that Mr Trump’s “effort to basically marginalise and humiliate the Attorney General is not going over well in the Senate” or with conservatives, adding that he is “100 per cent behind” Mr Sessions.

“The President has the right to fire anybody in his cabinet. As a human being, I think he should show some respect for Jeff Sessions as a person,” Mr Graham said.

Mr Sessions’ recusal from the Russia probe ultimately led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the investigation following the President’s firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Mr Trump opposed the appointment of Mr Mueller, who has reportedly now expanded his inquiry to look at a broad range of transactions involving Trump businesses.

As Mr Mueller has continued his investigation into whether Trump campaign advisers colluded with Russians, the President has floated the idea of firing him. Mr Trump’s lawyers are also reportedly exploring ways to limit or undercut the inquiry, which the President has denounced as a “witch hunt”.

“Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong,” Mr Graham said.

Mr Graham is working on legislation that would block the firing of special counsels without judicial review. Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Thursday they are among the senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are working with Mr Graham on the effort.

A spokesman for Mr Graham says the senator's still working on the bill, and it's unclear when it will be introduced.

Mr Blumenthal said that the bill “might be a committee effort” and said that it would protect Mr Mueller and other special counsels. He said firing Mr Mueller “would precipitate a firestorm that would be unprecedented in proportions.”