Nadler says Whitaker’s behavior “falls well short of the mark”

Mr. Nadler, the committee chairman, opened the hearing with sharp criticisms of Mr. Whitaker’s conduct while the acting attorney general. In particular he took Mr. Whitaker to task for refusing to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation even after career ethics officials recommended that he do so — a decision that Mr. Nadler said fell “well short of the mark.”

It’s one of many actions that Mr. Nadler said raised important questions about why President Trump chose Mr. Whitaker to run the department: Why did the president get rid of Mr. Sessions? Why did Mr. Whitaker choose to oversee an investigation that could harm Mr. Trump? And what does Mr. Trump hope to get from Mr. Whitaker’s leadership?

Collins accuses Democrats of “political theater” before putting on his own opening show

Mr. Collins, the ranking Republican on the committee, angrily attacked Democrats in his opening statement, saying that they were interested in carrying out a “character assassination” of Mr. Whitaker and damaging Mr. Trump, not carrying out oversight of the Department of Justice.

Mr. Collins noted that Mr. Nadler had promised not to issue a subpoena to Mr. Whitaker on Friday, saying Democrats had played a “hide and seek game” in securing permission on Thursday to subpoena Mr. Whitaker. And, noting that Mr. Barr would probably be attorney general by the end of next week, he said Democrats were just interested in having a “show” for partisan purposes.

After accusing Mr. Nadler of wasting time, Mr. Collins ended his fiery opening remarks by calling for the committee to adjourn. Mr. Nadler objected, but the request forced a committee vote to keep the hearing going before Mr. Whitaker was even sworn in.

Welcome to the Hill. Now about those documents.

Democrats’ antagonizing of Mr. Whitaker began before he was even in the hearing room on Friday. Four Democratic committee chairmen, including Mr. Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, released a letter they sent Mr. Whitaker on Thursday raising new questions about his work for a Florida company, World Patent Marketing, which is accused of defrauding customers. Mr. Whitaker, they said, had ignored their earlier requests for information. And new information obtained by the House indicated that Mr. Whitaker had not returned funds he had been paid by the company, which the chairmen said it had requested be returned to pay victims of the fraud.

“To date, you have failed to respond to that letter or provide a single document that we requested,” they wrote. “Since that time, we have obtained new documents showing that you failed to return thousands of dollars that were supposed to be distributed to the victims of World Patent Marketing alleged fraud, despite your involvement with Mr. Cooper in handling complaints from individuals of the company’s actions.”