From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbar. This is The Day.

Today, the Senate begins confirmation hearings for President Trump's latest choice of Attorney General William Barr.

What will it mean for Trump and the Special Counsel to finally have an Attorney General

who is actually in charge of the Russia investigation?

It's Tuesday, January 15th.

Okay, late of this morning, the Senate will begin confirmation hearings on the President's latest Attorney General William Barr.

Before we get to him, how did we get to this point?

So, in March 2017, Jeff Sessions decided to recuse himself from any matters related to the election.

He'd worked on the Trump campaign.

There had been disclosures that he may have had conversations with the Russian ambassador that he hadn't previously disclosed.

And so suddenly, it became apparent that he could not be involved in any matters related to the investigation.

Of course, at the same time, we have a firestorm brewing between the President and Jim Comey, which leads to the firing of Jim Comey.

Katie Banner covers the Justice Department for the Times.

So, after that happened, inside the Justice Department was incredibly chaotic, and Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General decided to step in and create a special counsel,

and a special counsel, but specifically look at the election. So now you have a situation where there's a huge investigation into the President.

The President's hand-picked Attorney General is powerless to help him and to be on his side, which he believes is the role of the Attorney General.

That's up for debate.

And suddenly, all of the anger of the President is trained on both the Justice Department and Jeff Sessions.

We have an Attorney General. I'm disappointed in the Attorney General.

And Jeff Sessions should have never let it happen. He should have never recused himself.

It's extremely unfair. And that's a mildewer to the President.

So I'm very disappointed in my Justice Department.

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