By Laura Jarrett and Eli Watkins | CNN News

President Donald Trump on Wednesday fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“At your request, I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions wrote in a letter to White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Matthew Whitaker will take over as acting attorney general, the President said.

Whitaker is expected to take charge of the Russia investigation and special counsel Robert Mueller from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Whitaker has been openly critical of Mueller and the investigation and Democrats immediately called on him to recuse himself, just as Sessions had.

“We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well …We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date,” Trump tweeted.

The move is an abrupt end to what had been a tumultuous tenure for Sessions, originally one of Trump’s earliest and most loyal surrogates as an Alabama Republican senator. He was a key figure in implementing Trump’s vision for America and significantly rolled back Obama-era policies on immigration, police reform and civil rights.

Sessions was an enforcer of much of the Trump administration’s hardline approach on immigration and regularly praised the President’s tough words on crime. But even as he continued to carry out the Trump agenda, his relationship with the President remained strained and fraught for months due to the ongoing Mueller investigation.

Sessions received the request to resign from Kelly, not the President, on Wednesday morning, an administration official said. It is not clear whether Mueller was told ahead of time.

Sessions believed that Rosenstein has handled the investigation properly after it was dropped “right in his lap,” according to a source familiar with Sessions’ thinking.”[Rosenstein is] a professional, he’s tried to do the right thing and he’s handled it as well as anybody could,” the source said of Sessions’ views on the matter.

However, the source said that Sessions himself has been frustrated that Mueller’s investigation has not yet concluded, but DOJ officials have “tried to do the right thing every day and not be involved in arguing the case in the media.”

In a statement, Whitaker said he will lead a “fair” department with high ethical standards.

“It is a true honor that the President has confidence in my ability to lead the Department of Justice as Acting Attorney General. I am committed to leading a fair Department with the highest ethical standards, that upholds the rule of law, and seeks justice for all Americans,” he said.

Trump constantly criticized Sessions

Sessions’ ouster came a day after the midterm elections saw Republicans hold onto control of the Senate — which would confirm Trump’s eventual permanent choice to head the Justice Department — and just weeks after Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud and Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight charges including tax fraud and bank fraud.

Sessions was aware that Cohen was facing bank fraud and tax violations but had been walled off from the campaign finance aspects of the investigation into Trump’s former lawyer, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN.

Trump’s distaste for Sessions was well known — and publicly reinforced , himself on a regular basis — after the attorney general recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 campaign early in Trump’s term.

The President mocked Sessions in August as “scared stiff and Missing in Action.” Later the same month as Trump continued to rail against him, Sessions issued a statement firing back at Trump and declaring, “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.”

Just days later, Trump knocked the Sessions-led Justice Department for indicting two Trump-supporting Republican congressmen ahead of the midterm elections. Both lawmakers won their re-election bids Tuesday.

But Sessions hung on, and although there was no formal reconciliation, the President allowed him to stay, even despite the unwillingness of White House spokespeople to publicly confirm, for days, that Trump had confidence in the attorney general.

In early August, Trump tweeted that Sessions “should stop” Mueller’s investigation, raising questions as to whether the President was attempting to obstruct justice. Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani told CNN’s Dana Bash that Trump was merely “expressing his opinion on his favorite medium.”

Sessions, for his part, consistently maintained that his recusal decision was made in consultation with career ethics officials at the Justice Department and was in the works from the time he was sworn in.

Democrats demand continued independence for Mueller

Top Democrats immediately called for Mueller’s investigation to be allowed to proceed.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the new acting attorney general to recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller probe.

“Given his previous comments advocating defunding and imposing limitations on the Mueller investigation, Mr. Whitaker should recuse himself from its oversight for the duration of his time as acting attorney general,” Schumer said.

Former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder declared interference with the special counsel “a red line.“

“Anyone who attempts to interfere with or obstruct the Mueller inquiry must be held accountable. This is a red line. We are a nation of laws and norms not subject to the self-interested actions of one man,” Holder tweeted.

Anyone who attempts to interfere with or obstruct the Mueller inquiry must be held accountable. This is a red line. We are a nation of laws and norms not subject to the self interested actions of one man.

— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) November 7, 2018

New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler tweeted a vow for accountability. Nadler is poised to chair the House Judiciary Committee next year.”

Americans must have answers immediately as to the reasoning behind @realDonaldTrump removing Jeff Sessions from @TheJusticeDept. Why is the President making this change and who has authority over Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation? We will be holding people accountable,” Nadler tweeted.

Immigration bonded him with Trump from the start

Sessions’ campaign loyalty to Trump earned him a plumb spot in the administration as attorney general, and Sessions’ former aides and allies, including prominent Trump adviser Stephen Miller, spread throughout the administration in key posts across multiple agencies.

Under Sessions, the Justice Department has been aggressive in trying to cut off funds to and punish sanctuary cities — though the courts have repeatedly admonished many of those efforts — and was the primary agency that justified the ending of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, a program that protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.

Sessions moved to push the limits of his authority over the nation’s immigration system and reinterpreted asylum law as he clashed with immigration judges. He has been the voice of many of the administration’s most aggressive immigration priorities, and was a staunch defender of the administration’s policies last summer that led to the separation of immigrant families and led to widespread outcry.

CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi and Tal Kopan contributed to this report.

By Stephen Collinson | CNN News

Democrats on Tuesday captured the House of Representatives and are set to exert a major institutional check on President Donald Trump, while breaking the Republican monopoly on power and ushering in a younger, more female and more racially diverse political generation.

But the GOP solidified their Senate majority after an acerbic midterm election that enshrined America’s deep divides and shaped a highly contentious battleground for the stirring 2020 presidential race.

The opposite trends in the House and the Senate underscored a political and cultural gulf among diverse and affluent liberals living in big cities and their suburbs, and the mostly, white, working class and rural conservative bloc of voters for whom Trump remains an iconic figure.

In his first reaction to a mixed night, Trump chose to celebrate Republican successes even though the loss of the House meant his record of busting political convention could not defy the traditional first-term midterm curse faced by many of his predecessors.”Tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all!” he tweeted.

But the new Democratic House will pose a perilous problem for the President, who must now brace for the novel experience of oversight from Capitol Hill with Democratic committee chairs promising constraints on his power that the GOP never attempted.

Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who is in position to lead again, pledged that the new majority would work to rein in the White House as well as to improve health care, lower the cost of drugs and protect millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions.

“Today is more than about Democrats and Republicans. It is about restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration,” Pelosi said.

Democrats could win more than 30 seats in the House, above the net gain of 23 seats that they needed to take control for the first time in eight years. But they lost significant ground in the Senate, losing incumbents in Missouri and Indiana and North Dakota, where Trump is still wildly popular. With several races too close to call, the GOP advantage was expected to grow.

And liberal hearts were broken in several closely fought marquee races, including Andrew Gillum’s failure to become Florida’s first African-American governor and rising star Beto O’Rourke’s failed bid to unseat Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

O’Rourke’s narrow defeat, however, proved his ability to compete even in conservative territory and he will get buzz as a potential 2020 presidential candidate.

Democrats dare to dream again

Two years after the trauma of Trump’s shock defeat of Hillary Clinton, Democrats could dare to dream again.

They won the House, which will change hands for the third time in 12 volatile years, by performing strongly in suburban areas where Trump’s flaming rhetoric is toxic. They also attracted a higher proportion of younger voters than at the last midterm elections four years ago and will change the face of Washington.

“We have the beginning of a new Democratic Party, younger, browner, cooler, more women, more veterans, can win in Michigan, can win in Pennsylvania, can win in Ohio,” said Van Jones, a CNN political commentator. “It may not be a blue wave, it’s a rainbow wave.”

One potential pitfall for Democrats will be to hold Trump to account without being seen as overreaching. After all, some presidents, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, had tough midterm elections but leveraged attacks by Capitol Hill foes to help them win re-election. Trump, who loves nothing more than to identify new enemies, will be a formidable opponent.

Within minutes of their victory being confirmed, other Democrats were already threatening to go after Trump and to probe his business interests, including his tax returns.

Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who is slated to steer the House Judiciary Committee, warned that the election was about accountability for Trump.”He’s going to learn that he’s not above the law,” Nadler told CNN.

The race they ran

The contradictory message sent by voters on Tuesday night recalls Clinton’s win in the popular vote but defeat in the Electoral College and underlines the split down the middle of American politics.

Republicans performed strongly in the deep red states where Trump mounted a frenetic final campaign blitz and proved that despite his low approval rating he remains a potent political force among conservatives.In nearly every state with a key contested Senate or governor’s race, the President had a positive approval rating over 50%, according to CNN’s preliminary exit poll data.

Keeping hold of the Senate is especially important for Trump, since it will allow him and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell to press on with one of his major legacy-building initiatives, restocking the federal judiciary with conservatives.

Tuesday’s Senate victory marks another triumph for the canny Kentuckian, follow his piloting of Trump’s two nominees onto the Supreme Court to construct what could be a generational conservative majority.

Still, Trump will also have to answer for a scorched-earth campaign on immigration in the final days that might have helped tip the House to Democrats, even if he can argue that his magnetism helped push other candidates, such as Rep. Ron DeSantis, who won the Florida gubernatorial race, across the finish line.

Other Trump favorites include Marsha Blackburn, who will capture the Tennessee Senate race, and Mike Braun, who defeated the incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana. Trump also helped topple another foe, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri.

The loss of the House spells the end of a political era for Republicans who rode into town on a Tea Party wave whipped up by fury over Obamacare and huge government spending in the wake of the Great Recession.

The Republican majority will leave town with Obamacare still the law of the land and with a deficit going through the roof on the back of GOP tax cuts.

In theory, the new Democratic majority would have the capacity to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump, should there be sufficient grounds uncovered in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

Though the Republican gains in the Senate make it even less likely that there would be a two-thirds majority needed to convict a president and evict him from office.

But if they take a cautious approach, Democrats could face a backlash from their own base voters who have been electrified in opposition to Trump. In exit polls, 77% of self-identified Democrats supported impeachment.

What is next for Trump?

Much will depend on how Trump reacts to what is undeniable a rebuke from voters two years into a presidency that has unfolded in institutional chaos, torn at racial and cultural divides and often trampled on truth and facts.

Given his history and personality, it seems unlikely the President will reflect on the cultural warfare that he waged in the dying days of the campaign and change his approach. Indeed, he may conclude that exactly that kind of approach was behind a better-than-expected GOP performance in Senate races.

But critics will argue that his incessant concern with bolstering the support of his most vehement supporters and angry tirades risks deepening the damage suffered among college-educated female voters especially, in a way that could severely compromise his hopes of winning re-election in two years.

The President watched the results after having dinner with his family in the residence of the White House.

He was joined by Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and the President’s ex-campaign aides, David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, a source familiar with the guest list said.

Two other sources close to the White House said that Trump is already blaming retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan for the loss of the House.

“He is really angry at Ryan,” one source said, on “everything.”Drew Hammill, an aide to Pelosi, tweeted Tuesday evening that the President called Pelosi at 11:45 p.m. ET “to extend his congratulations on winning a Democratic House Majority.”

This story has been updated.

By Dan Merica | CNN News

Rep. Marsha Blackburn will win the race to represent Tennessee in the US Senate, outlasting a challenge from former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat who looked to run against his party to win in a state President Donald Trump won by 26 percentage points in 2016.

Blackburn, a conservative lawmaker closely tied to the President, looked to nationalize the Senate race as much as possible, hoping to tap into the same conservatism that elected Trump in order to blunt some goodwill Bredesen had built up during his two terms as governor. Trump visited the state three times. Blackburn will be the first female senator to represent her state.

Democrats had hoped to pick up Tennessee as part of a narrow path to retaking the Senate.

Although Bredesen ran as a Democrat, he largely ran away from the national party and regularly touted his ties to the state and independence from Washington, D.C.

The strategy was clear: He hoped to bank on the fact he won every county in the state in 2006 during his second run for governor and looked to tag Blackburn as a traditional Washington ideologue.

Bredesen got some help, too. Sen. Bob Corker, whose decision to retire opened the seat and gave way to the Democratic campaign, declined to help bury the popular Democrat, a clear sign that not all Republicans have been wooed by the Trump wing of the party.

And the former governor also energized Tennessee Democrats who had long struggled to gain traction in the state. Taylor Swift, a pop star known for staying out of politics, eagerly got behind his campaign, too.

Blackburn, however, looked to highlight Bredesen’s party affiliation at every turn, regularly tying him to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and some of the more high-profile liberal members of the legislative body.

“Phil Bredesen has said he would have voted against the tax cuts,” Blackburn said during one debate. “Chuck Schumer has bought and paid for his campaign.”

Bredesen looked to blunt the attack by telling voters he would not back Schumer for Majority Leader if he were elected.

The former governor also announced during the campaign that he would have voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s controversial Supreme Court pick, whose confirmation hearings became a national event after professor Christine Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.

By Lauren Fox, Jeremy Herb and Manu Raju | CNN News

House Democrats are ready to unleash the full force of their oversight powers on the Trump administration, a political liability for the President that will come from a newly divided government in Washington.

Now in the majority, Democrats are prepared to force Cabinet secretaries to testify, request President Donald Trump’s tax returns and scrutinize some of the Trump’s most controversial policy decisions that got little more than an eye-roll or harsh statement from Trump’s fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Now that oversight will come under the hot lights of television cameras in high-octane Democratic-controlled hearings.

It’s the moment Democrats have been waiting for.

“This election was about accountability,” New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is expected to lead the Judiciary Committee next year, told CNN. “Donald Trump may not like hearing it, but for the first time, his administration is going to be held accountable.”

The preparations for a Democratic takeover have been underway for months.

One source familiar with the discussions said that “it would have been malpractice” not to be ready even as leadership encouraged members to exercise caution. The person described rigorous planning in which key oversight teams were communicating with each other “every single day.“

“Winning the majority is a mandate to provide a check and balance in the form of oversight and accountability that’s been completely absent during two years of the Trump administration under Republican control of Congress,” said. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia. “But how we do it is what will be the test. We can’t look like Torquemada in the Spanish Inquisition. It has to be fact-based, methodical, meticulous and well-grounded. And judicious. But I believe we are more than capable of doing that. We’ve done it before.”

Where to look

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee will be at the center of the action. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland who is expected to lead the committee, plans to look at “all the things the President has done that go against the mandates of our founding fathers in the Constitution.”

“Right now, we have a president who is accountable to no one,” Cummings told CNN.

Still, Cummings insisted he would “work very hard” to approach his chairmanship in a deliberative and bipartisan manner. “I don’t want people to think we are going to rush in and beat up on Trump,” he said.

Even in the minority, Cummings sought to investigate potential violations of the Emoluments clause and whether the administration followed protocols when it came to their employees’ security clearances.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Cummings has accused Trump of being far more instrumental than first thought in the decision to keep the FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., as opposed to moving it to the suburbs, a move Democrats argued was so that Trump could ensure another developer wouldn’t buy it and build something that would compete with Trump’s nearby hotel.

But, the House Judiciary Committee will also have a major stake in the oversight game. Over the last few months, the panel’s Democrats have sent dozens of letters on everything from the Trump administration’s family separations on the Southern border to the rise of white nationalism to why the Justice Department has refused to defend the Affordable Care Act in a Texas court case.

Nadler, whose political fights with Trump stretch back decades over New York real estate politics, told CNN that his committee would probe many of those same issues they previously pressed Republicans to examine, including family separation, gun safety, environmental laws and the Justice Department’s failure to defend the Affordable Care Act.

“He’s going to learn that he’s not above the law,” Nadler said of Trump.

Trump’s tax returns

Another top priority will be asking for Trump’s tax returns. Rep. Richard Neal, the man expected to lead the House Ways and Means Committee, told CNN in October he plans to first ask Trump for them. If that fails, he will use an arcane IRS code to formally request them, a move that is expected to launch a months-long court battle.

“I think we would all be comfortable if this was done on a voluntary basis,” Neal said. “If they would resist the overture then I think you could probably see a long and grinding court case.”

Cummings said Trump’s tax returns would “probably” be pursued as part of his panel’s Emoluments investigation as well, but predicted that the committees would coordinate their oversight efforts.

“The last thing we want to do is step on each other,” he said.”All of this is complicated because it’s like coming upon an 88-car pile-up on the highway. It’s hard to know where to begin,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the Judiciary and Oversight Committees.

For policy committees, expect even more oversight of federal agencies. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will conduct oversight into the ways the Trump administration has weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions at the Department of Health and Human Services.

And, the House Natural Resources Committee’s expected Chairman Raul Grijalva has said he wants to bring Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke before his committee after reporting that the Department of Justice is investigating the secretary.

“Secretary Zinke will be called to testify in February on why his conduct in office merited referral to the Justice Department, whether that referral was related to the recent attempted firing of his inspector general, and his many other failures and scandals,” Grijalva said in a statement before the midterms.

Russia

The new Democratic majority is also likely to result in a restarting of the congressional investigation into potential collusion between Trump’s team and Russia, which House Republicans concluded in March.

But Rep. Adam Schiff, who is likely to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, isn’t planning to re-launch a full-blown investigation into Russia. That’s because special counsel Robert Mueller is believed to be close to completing his work, and the Senate Intelligence Committee is also nearing the finish line of its own Russia investigation.

As a result, Democrats plan to wait to see what Mueller and the Senate find — and what questions they believe are still unanswered, according to a senior House Democratic aide. They expect there could be several key issues that might go unanswered that they can continue to probe, including potential Russian money laundering, Trump’s financial ties to Deutsche Bank and the number Donald Trump Jr. called when he dialed a blocked phone the while arranging the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

“The question, though, that I don’t know whether Mueller has been able to answer because I don’t know whether he’s been given the license to look into it, is were the Russians laundering money through the Trump Organization?” Schiff told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last month. “And that will be a very high priority to get an answer to. For the reason that, if they were doing this, it’s not only a crime, but it’s something provable.”

Of course, one unanswered question that could change Democrats’ planning is that they don’t know what form the end result of the special counsel will take, if his findings will even be provided to Congress and who might be supervising the special counsel investigation if Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein leave the Justice Department.

DOJ regulations don’t require that Mueller’s findings are provided to Congress, and if they are not sent to Capitol Hill, it’s likely to be one of the biggest early fights between the new Democratic House and the Trump administration.

Will the White House cooperate?

One outside White House ally predicted a “long fight” over subpoenas from Democratic investigations between lawmakers and the Trump administration but said the White House might be inclined to cooperate more than some might expect.

“Why give them a needle when you can give them the haystack?” the ally said, suggesting that document dumps might drown Democrats in so much paperwork that it keeps them occupied for months.

Separately, another White House official acknowledged that they will need a coordinated campaign between legal and communications teams to fight back in public. Much of this response is expected come down to what new White House counsel Pat Cipollone advises, the official said.

CNN’s Elizabeth Landers contributed to this report.

By Julia Jones, Rosa Flores and Nicole Chavez | CNN News

Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc is expected to appear in a New York court on Tuesday.

The 56-year-old will appear in federal court in downtown Manhattan at noon ET, according to a letter from federal prosecutors to Judge Robert Lehrburger.

Sayoc was due to arrive in New York on Monday after waiving his right to a bond hearing in Miami on Friday.

He faces five federal charges: interstate transportation of an explosive, illegal mailing of explosives, threats against former presidents and other persons, threatening interstate communications, and assaulting current and former federal officers.

16th explosive device recovered, prosecutors say

Sayoc is accused of sending at least 14 mail bombs to several targets, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. None of the devices detonated, and no one was injured.

If convicted, Sayoc could receive up to 48 years in prison.

Since Sayoc’s arrest, authorities have recovered two more packages containing explosive devices, bringing the total to 16.

The latest package was found on Friday, federal prosecutors said in the letter to Lehrburger. The device was in a package addressed to a Democratic donor and billionaire Thomas Steyer, in California, prosecutors said. It was the second package Sayoc allegedly mailed to Steyer.

“The defendant used mailing materials nearly identical to the other 15 packages, including the same type of envelope, address format, and stamps,” the prosecutors’ letter reads.

FBI finds target list, package labels

Sayoc was arrested on Oct. 26 at an AutoZone parking lot in Plantation, Florida, as he neared his white Dodge van, which was plastered with pro-Trump and anti-Democrat memes.

In the week since his arrest, authorities have called the pipe bombs a “domestic terrorist attack.”

A letter sent to the judge presiding over Sayoc’s case in Florida suggests investigators believe he had planned to continue his alleged attacks.

“Put simply, only the defendant’s arrest and incapacitation resulting from his detention were sufficient to stop his attack,” Geoffrey S. Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York wrote.

Searches into Sayoc’s laptop and cell phone showed he had been doing research online about the homes and families of the recipients of the packages. He also kept a list of their physical addresses and had lists of other potential targets, the letter said.

And while the exact content of the packages has not been discussed in detail, prosecutors said the bombs had clear similarities. They a in envelopes that had return labels listing the address and the name of US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a former Democratic National Committee chair.

The return labels all had the same misspellings, the letter said.

Video shows suspect chatting with officers

Investigators suspect that Sayoc made the pipe bombs in the van he was arrested beside, two law enforcement sources have said.

A law enforcement official has said it appears that Sayoc had been kicked out by his parents and was living in the vehicle.

Sayoc’s arrest last month was not the first time that law enforcement approached him near his vehicle.

In September, two Boca Raton police officers had a friendly chat with the former male dancer outside his van, which was parked outside a fitness club.

The nearly five-minute conversation was recorded on an officer’s bodycam.

The footage shows one officer explaining that someone had called about Sayoc, saying, “They were concerned about you.”

The officers seemed to think he was OK. Sayoc told them he was taking a nap after working at a Florida strip club and that he planned to go inside the gym to work out. They checked his license and ran his plate, and they both came back valid.

In the video, Sayoc’s dashboard and front seats are visible but not the rest of the interior.

CNN’s Rosa Flores reported from Miami, and Nicole Chavez wrote and reported from Atlanta. CNN’s Kara Scannell, Evan Perez, Laura Jarrett, Jamiel Lynch, Susannah Cullinane and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.