I haven’t interfered in probe, Whitaker says
Acting AG spars with House Democrats
WASHINGTON – Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker declared to Congress on Friday that he had not interfered with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and that his handling of the case had been “independent of any outside interference.”
“I have not interfered in any way with the special counsel’s investigation,” Whitaker told the House Judiciary Committee during a combative hearing in which lawmakers pressed him for details on his handling of the criminal investigations surrounding President Donald Trump.
In more than four hours of sworn testimony Friday, Whitaker sought to answer criticisms that have shadowed his time leading a Justice Department conducting tandem criminal investigations surrounding the president. Whitaker is a close ally of Trump, and Democrats have suggested he might have been chosen for the job because he had publicly criticized Mueller’s probe before being put in a position to lead it.
Whitaker said he had “not talked to the president of the United States about the special counsel.” He said he had not discussed it with any other senior White House officials and had not denied investigators resources to do their work and suggested to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., that he had not stepped in to thwart any of the steps Mueller planned to take in his investigation.
So far, Whitaker said, “there has been no event – no decision – that has required me to take any action” in the case.
Still, in his first and likely only appearance before Congress as the attorney general, Whitaker told lawmakers that he would not give them any more detail about his conversations with Trump, sparring with House Democrats eager to know whether the White House had sought to interfere in the investigations centered on the president. He also repeatedly declined to give them more specific information about Mueller’s investigation because it is ongoing.
“Your failure to respond fully to our questions here today in no way limits the ability of this committee to get answers in the long run, even if you are a private citizen when we finally learn the truth,” Nadler said.
Democrats pressed Whitaker about whether he agreed with Trump’s characterizations of the investigation he has frequently dismissed as a hoax and a witch hunt. “Are you overseeing a witch hunt?” asked Rep. Steve Cohen, D-tenn.
Whitaker said it would be “inappropriate for me to comment on an ongoing investigation.”
The much-anticipated confrontation lived up its billing as the first major clash between the White House and Democrats who took control of the House of Representatives in January. The hearing came days after Trump used his State of the Union speech Tuesday to criticize “ridiculous partisan investigations.”
The Senate could move as early as next week to confirm his permanent replacement, William Barr.