that was going on at the department of justice, that i obviously -- that general sessions wasn't recused from. i think the president was comfortable that to continue the momentum at the department of justice, that we had established, in addressing these important priority issues like reducing violent crime, combating the opioid crisis and others, that the president felt i was best positioned to do the duties of attorney general. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'll just say to mr. whitaker, my questions in a normal oversight committee would be vastly different than the direction i'm going to go because we've kind of wandered into this other stream over here. so i'm going to ask you some questions. the longstanding constitutionally based department of justice policy holds that a sitting president cannot be indicted. and that's based on the last review which happened under the clinton administration. is that still in effect or has