Sessions Home After Breaking Elbow, Insists He Won’t Quit

WASHINGTON — FBI Director William S. Sessions returned home Sunday from a night in the hospital after breaking his elbow, still determined not to quit his job despite reported Administration demands that he resign this week or be fired.

“It’s a matter of principle,” Sessions said as he emerged from Sibley Hospital. “It’s a matter of being certain that everybody understands across the world and across the nation that this director is not guilty of unethical or improper conduct and that the bureau must not be anything other than an independent agency.”

Sessions broke his right elbow when he tripped over a curb while leaving the Justice Department on Saturday.

His ability to complete the final 4 1/2 years of his 10-year term came into doubt in January when the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility issued a scathing report accusing him of ethical lapses.

The OPR report said that Sessions, a former federal judge in Texas, used government vehicles for personal trips, avoided taxes on chauffeured travel to and from work, had a taxpayer-funded fence improperly built at his home and used his position to receive a “sweetheart” deal on his home mortgage.

Sessions said the only way he would leave “is for the President to say, ‘I want to replace you.’ If he does it, I’ve gone all the way with the bureau, and I know that I’ve done my job.”

Clinton, via messengers, said something to that effect Saturday when Sessions was told he must quit or be fired, possibly as early as today, a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified said.