Given the opportunity to walk back his comments, before joining the Justice Department, that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation might be a “witch hunt,” acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker declined to do so at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Friday.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) brought up Whitaker’s “witch hunt” comment, which he made in a CNN column, that if Mueller probed President Trump’s finances it “would raise serious concerns that the special counsel’s investigation was a mere witch hunt.”

“Would you say the special counsel’s investigations is a witch hunt? Are you overseeing a witch hunt?” Cohen said.

Instead of addressing the comments, Whitaker said it would be inappropriate for him to talk about an ongoing investigation.