Acting AG says he’s not interfered with Mueller
WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday that he has “not interfered in any way” in the special counsel’s Russia investigation as he faced a contentious and partisan congressional hearing in his waning days on the job.
The hearing before the House Judiciary Committee was the first, and likely only, chance for newly empowered Democrats in the majority to grill an attorney general they perceive as a Donald Trump loyalist and whose appointment they suspect was aimed at suppressing investigations of the Republican president. They confronted Whitaker on his past criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller’s work and his refusal to recuse himself from overseeing it, attacked him over his prior business dealings and sneeringly challenged his credentials as the country’s chief law enforcement officer.
“We’re all trying to figure out: Who are you, where did you come from and how the heck did you become the head of the Department of Justice,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. When Whitaker tried to respond, the New York Democrat interrupted, “Mr. Whitaker, that was a statement, not a question. I assume you know the difference.”
Yet Democrats yielded no new information about the status of the Mueller probe as Whitaker repeatedly refused to discuss conversations with the president or answer questions that he thought might reveal details. Though clearly exasperated — he drew gasps and chuckles when he told the committee chairman that his five-minute time limit for questions was up — Whitaker nonetheless sought to assuage Democratic concerns by insisting he had never discussed the Mueller probe with Trump or other White House officials, and that there’d been no change in its “overall management.”
“We have followed the special counsel’s regulations to a T,” Whitaker said. “There has been no event, no decision, that has required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way with the special counsel’s investigation.”
Republicans made clear they viewed the hearing as pointless political grandstanding, especially since Whitaker may have less than a week left in the job. The Senate is expected to vote as soon as next week on confirming William Barr, Trump’s pick for attorney general.
Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia accused his Democratic colleagues of “character assassination.” But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the committee chairman, left no doubt that his party was focused on why Whitaker didn’t recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation.
“You decided that your private interest in overseeing this particular investigation, and perhaps others from which you should have been recused, was more important than the integrity of the department,” said Nadler, of New York. “The question that this committee must now ask is: Why?”
At times Whitaker echoed some of the president’s talking points, conceding for instance that while foreign interference in U.S. elections is a problem, so too is voter fraud — a key issue for Republicans, but one that Democrats say is overstated.