united states. here he goes. let s assume that the president asked him to stop investigating flynn. that doesn t rise to the level of obstruction of justice and it doesn t sound to me based on what s been reported that jim comey, as he sat there, believed that the president was telling him to stop the investigation. liz hultsman, i don t know the law like you do. obstruction of justice, the president may have done it again. but they re not going to stop him, it seems, because it is within his legal power to pick an acting attorney general after he got jeff sessions to, at your request, mr. president, i m resigning. creating an opening for his guy. well, but if the objective here by trump was to stop the mueller investigation, prevent his son from being indicted, prevent roger stone from being indicted, prevent himself from being named in some kind of indictment, then it s definitely an impeachment offense. i don t know if it s
thing, a naked power grab. that s the big news tonight. trump has handed the reins of the special counsel s investigation to an unabashed trump loyalist. a personal loyalist to insure that the president will be protected, not investigated. trump s choice of matt whitaker as acting attorney general is raising alarm among those who consider the equal administration of justice a bedrock principle of american government. that s because by elevating whitaker, the president of the united states is effectively hijacking the independence of the department of justice itself. nbc news today reports that in the justice department, whitaker was viewed as an agent of the white house. as one administration official said, it s no secret where his loyalties lie. they re with the white house. more than with the department. as an out spoken trump advocate, whitaker has expressed disdain for the special counsel s investigation itself. in 2017, he tweeted an article calling mueller s prosecutors a lynch m
washington post, and betsy woodruff broke that story for the badaily beast. what do you have on this guy, whitaker? it seems like he s been auditioning is a pretty good work for it, auditioning for the role of trump protector in the role of acting attorney general. that s certainly the view within the justice department. one important piece of context to bear in mind, as whitaker has now risen to and taken power within doj, is that he and rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who was heading, supervising the mueller probe until whitaker took sessions old job, don t really get along according to a host of officials in the doj that my colleague and i spoke with yesterday in the hours after whitaker took that position. rosenstein and whitaker are not on the same page on a variety of issues, in terms of their personalities, our understanding is that they just don t mesh, and having those two people running this department at this time has led to a lot of friction. additionally,