Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is sworn in before the House Judiciary Committee. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo Congress Whitaker says he never interfered in Mueller probe The hearing offers a window into how the Democrat-controlled House will pursue the Trump administration.

Democrats on Friday previewed how they plan to use their newly minted House majority to investigate the Trump administration as they grilled acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe — and even fired off a subpoena threat.

During a highly contentious hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Whitaker testified that he never interfered with Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. But he declined to discuss certain conversations he has had about the probe with President Donald Trump.


“There has been no event, no decision that has required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way in the special counsel’s investigation,” Whitaker said after Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) pressed him about his involvement overseeing Mueller’s 20-month old probe since the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions last November.

The DOJ chief stood his ground, insisting he would not “talk about my private conversations with the president of the United States” — citing the possibility that the president would invoke executive privilege to shield the contents of those discussions. But Whitaker was at times inconsistent in his willingness to answer questions about his discussions with Trump and his supervision of the Mueller probe, drawing Democrats’ ire and prompting Nadler to demand that he return to the committee for an under-oath deposition.

Trump on Saturday called the Democrats' actions "vicious" in a tweet.

Nadler summoned Whitaker for Friday’s hearing in a last-chance bid to grill the acting DOJ chief about his unorthodox rise to the nation’s top law enforcement job, particularly before he hands over the reins of the department to Sessions’ likely successor, William Barr.

The powerful Democratic committee chairman has raised concerns that Trump temporarily elevated Whitaker in a bid to stymie the Mueller probe, and a nationally televised hearing gave the New York lawmaker and his colleagues the opportunity to put the acting attorney general on the spot with repeated fast-ball questions seeking to put their theories to the test.

Whitaker acknowledged to the Democrat-led panel that “at no time has the White House asked for, nor have I provided, any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel’s investigation or any other investigation.” He declined to back-up Trump’s long-espoused assertions that the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt.”

Many of the Democratic inquiries centered on whether Whitaker discussed his opinions about the Mueller investigation with Trump, White House officials, or the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, prior to his appointment as acting attorney general.

“No, I did not,” Whitaker answered. He later added: “I did not talk about my views about the Mueller investigation with anyone in the White House.”

Even though Whitaker repeatedly insisted Friday that he wouldn’t comment about the ongoing Mueller investigation, he gave in when pressed by both the Democratic and GOP leaders of the panel with answers that did reveal details about his oversight responsibilities dealing with the Russia probe.

For example, Whitaker acknowledged getting a heads-up about longtime Trump associate Roger Stone’s indictment and arrest last month before it happened. “That would have been considered a development that I would have been briefed on, and I was briefed on,” he said.

He also answered some questions about his conversations with the president, while refusing to entertain others. For example, he told Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) that he “did not talk to the president about the Mueller investigation.” Whitaker also disputed a CNN report that Trump “lashed out” at him after federal prosecutors implicated the president in crimes that his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to, telling Cicilline that Trump “did not” do so. Additionally, he confirmed that he interviewed in 2017 for a job as the White House legal counsel responsible for the Russia probe – a position that first went to Ty Cobb and more recently held by Emmet Flood.

Whitaker’s testimony — which lasted six hours including breaks — comes a day after a standoff between the Justice Department and the committee over Nadler’s threat to subpoena the acting attorney general. Underscoring those tensions, Whitaker took the extraordinarily rare step of pointing out to Nadler that his five minutes of questioning time had expired, drawing gasps and laughs from the Democratic side of the panel.

It appeared that Whitaker was also trying to run out the clock before he officially leaves his post when the Senate confirms Barr as the new attorney general, possibly as soon as next week. Whitaker often mentioned what he said were the Justice Department’s achievements under both his and Sessions’ tenure, while Democrats remained laser-focused on the Mueller probe and other controversies including family separation and civil rights.

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At one point, Nadler told Whitaker to stop “filibustering” Democrats’ questions, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) chided Whitaker for questioning how much time she had left, telling him: “Your humor is not acceptable.” And Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told Whitaker not to interfere with the Mueller probe.

“In your final week, keep your hands off the Mueller investigation,” Jeffries said.

Throughout the hearing, Republicans raised concerns about some of the Democratic members’ questions, claiming they fell outside of the official scope of the hearing. In response to one of those objections, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) suggested to Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, that he should “sit down there” next to Whitaker to act as his lawyer, after Collins objected to Swalwell’s questions about foreign donations to Whitaker’s former ethics watchdog group.

Collins responded with a jab at Swalwell for his possible 2020 presidential ambitions.

Whitaker declined to elaborate on his declaration last month that the Mueller investigation was “close to be completed,” a comment that alarmed some lawmakers. Mueller faces no deadline, so Whitaker's remarks prompted confusion given other evidence showing Mueller is not close to finishing his probe.

Last month, Democrats sent Whitaker a list of questions mostly pertaining to his conversations with Trump about Mueller’s investigation, which the acting attorney general had publicly criticized as a frequent TV commentator and radio talk show guest before joining the Justice Department in September 2017 as Sessions’ chief of staff.

Nadler gave Whitaker until Wednesday to inform the panel whether Trump planned to invoke executive privilege, and Whitaker declared during Friday’s hearing that he would neither discuss his conversations with Trump, nor talk specifically about the ongoing Mueller probe.

In his opening statement, Nadler highlighted Whitaker’s past statements that were critical of the Mueller probe, including his suggestion that the investigation be de-funded. Whitaker told the panel that he has never denied funding for the Mueller probe.

Last year, Whitaker rejected DOJ ethics attorneys’ advice and declined to recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation, a decision Democrats decried — but one that Whitaker defended on Friday.

“It was my decision to make. I decided not to recuse,” Whitaker said.

He also explained during the hearing he had consulted with his senior staff and DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, but ultimately was told it was a “close call” whether to step aside from overseeing the Mueller probe. “They said it could go either way,” Whitaker said, adding that he opted to take on the role supervising the special counsel “not to bind my successors.”

Several Democrats, including Nadler, took issue with his decision.

“When career officials at the Department recommended that you take steps to mitigate your apparent conflicts of interest, Mr. Whitaker — when they told you that your public criticism of the special counsel was bad for the Department and bad for the administration of justice — you ignored them,” Nadler told Whitaker.

In his prepared statement, Whitaker explained that there “has been no change in the overall management of the special counsel investigation.”

“I have and will continue to manage this investigation in a manner that is consistent with the governing regulations,” he added.

Whitaker said he has less than a week left atop DOJ before Barr is expected to be confirmed. Anticipating the transition, Nadler said he’d be looking for an agreement after the hearing that Whitaker return to the House panel for an under-oath deposition with a transcript released to the public.

Any questions Whitaker declined to answer Friday that require consultation with the White House on executive privilege — including Democrats’ inquiries about his communications with Trump after receiving briefings about the Mueller probe — would be re-asked during the deposition, Nadler said. Whitaker, however, did not publicly respond to Nadler’s request for a deposition. In his closing statement, Nadler threatened to issue a subpoena if necessary.

Senior DOJ officials say that while Whitaker is technically the supervising leader of Mueller, both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Ed O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general, have kept their same roles overseeing the Russia investigation that they had when Sessions led the Justice Department but had recused himself from the probe because of his work with the 2016 Trump campaign.

Under DOJ regulations, Mueller doesn’t require day-to-day oversight but all of his major decisions involving issues like subpoenas, indictments and the budget require a check-in with his designated department leaders.

Rosenstein plans to leave the Justice Department in about four to six weeks after Barr’s Senate confirmation, per the attorney general’s request, according to a senior DOJ official with knowledge of Rosenstein’s plans.

Whitaker also weighed in on a controversy being driven by Stone and his attorneys, as well as Trump, dealing with the fact that a CNN camera crew was outside Stone’s south Florida home just before his pre-dawn arrest. The network recorded footage of the FBI raid that it aired later that morning.

The cable network has explained that it made the decision to send a camera crew to stake out Stone’s Fort Lauderdale home based off its own reporting from the hallways of the Washington courthouse and outside Mueller’s downtown office.

But Republicans have nonetheless drilled in to suggest without evidence that CNN’s coverage was based off a leak from Mueller’s office.

In his testimony, Whitaker explained that DOJ was following its “basic policy for transparency in criminal cases” when Mueller’s office released the unsealed indictment and news of Stone’s arrest. “As I sit here today, I don’t have any other information I can talk about,” Whitaker said.

A moment later, however, Whitaker acknowledged to Collins, the panel’s top Republican, that he too found it “deeply concerning” that the network got the jump on the Stone news.

“I share your concerns that a media outlet was tipped off to either Mr. Stone's indictment or arrest before that information was made available to the public,” Whitaker said.

