Jeff Sessions has resigned. What happens to Mueller’s investigation now?

Speculation over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s job security — one of the long-running dramas of the Trump administration — came to an abrupt end Wednesday with news of Sessions’ resignation.

The president frequently railed against his “beleaguered” attorney general for failing to sufficiently protect him from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. Sessions recused himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election in March 2017 because of his involvement in the Trump campaign (and questions about his own Russia contacts).

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then took over the probe and appointed Mueller.

Now the acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, who has criticized the Mueller probe, is in charge. Whoever is formally nominated for the job is likely to face a controversial confirmation process, as Trump has already made clear he wants a loyal attorney general. A new AG will have the power to let Mueller continue unimpeded — or curtail his mandate.

Whitaker, currently Sessions’s chief of staff, has been named the acting attorney general. Whitaker’s name first appeared in September during the turmoil over Rosenstein’s job after a New York Times report that said Rosenstein had suggested secretly taping the president and talked about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. In the aftermath, the White House purportedly selected Whitaker to take over as acting deputy attorney general if Rosenstein resigned.

Now Trump has gone through with it.

Such a move is allowed under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which lays out who can serve in acting capacities when positions open up in the executive branch. Certain high-level career officials, like Whitaker, are eligible to serve in an acting capacity.

Whitaker, a former US attorney from Iowa, is the White House’s “eyes and ears” in the Justice Department, according to the New York Times. He’s also a fiscal and social conservative who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2014. He aligns with Trump (and Sessions) when it comes to issues like crime and immigration, but Whitaker comes with the added perk (for Trump) of publicly expressing some displeasure about the Mueller investigation.

In August 2017, before joining the Trump administration, Whitaker published an op-ed for CNN that accused Mueller’s investigation of being “dangerously close to crossing a red line” if it probed Trump’s finances. “If he were to continue to investigate the [Trump family’s] financial relationships without a broadened scope in his appointment,” Whitaker wrote, “then this would raise serious concerns that the special counsel’s investigation was a mere witch hunt.”

Whitaker, and whoever takes over the role permanently, will ultimately take charge of the Mueller investigation, assuming the investigation is still ongoing, and so long as Trump’s nominee doesn’t have any conflicts that would force them to recuse themselves.

That means the new attorney general has the power to let Mueller keep doing what he’s doing — or curtail or shut down the investigation altogether.

In short, this is all going to make for some intense confirmation hearings. Trump has indicated that he believes his attorney general should protect him. His pick for AG will almost certainly be questioned about this, and about whether Trump extracted any loyalty pledges. Lawmakers will also likely grill the nominee on his stance or opinions on the legitimacy of the Mueller investigation.

One thing is clear: Trump’s pressure campaign ended up working. Sessions has dutifully carried out the Trump agenda on crime and immigration. But his decision to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation has haunted his tenure and irrevocably damaged his standing with the president.

Now Trump may have the chance to pick an attorney general who’ll continue to carry out his policy agenda — and maybe one who won’t do the very “unfair” thing and recuse himself from the Russia investigation.