to president trump were mentioned in the search warrant of michael cohen s home and office and hotel room but maybe it changed, maybe that was true at the time. but regardless, that was something that the president said and he has mentioned to it investigators on multiple occasions. it s funny, the times did an interview with the president a couple of weeks ago and i asked him something, i don t remember what my exact question was, but he said, rod told me i m not a target of the mueller probe. and then i asked him about the sdny probe and said he wasn t sure about that. i think he was actually getting i don t think he has been told he wasn t a target of mueller. i do think that he had some indication from rosenstein early on that the cohen probe had nothing to do with him and the president took that to heart. jeffrey, attorney general william barr was confirmed just last week. do you think that he looks into this, the actions that the president was taking? no, i don t think he
5:00 a.m. on the east coast and we start with president trump facing more obstruction of justice questions in the wake of a wide ranging new york times report. the times says the president pushed to have a federal prosecutor appointed during his administration to oversee the michael cohen investigation. mr. trump by that point had already been implicated in the cohen probe. the times reports late last year he still called then acting attorney general matthew whitaker to ask if the u.s. attorney in manhattan could supervise it. the report is raising obstruction concerns even in places that usually downplay them. the phone call would be evidence of what? corrupt intent. that is, an effort to use the levers of power of the government for a corrupt purpose. would that be obstruction? yes. well, it would be attempted obstruction. it s still unclear what whitaker did in response to the president s call. there s no evidence that he took any action. the justice department says
what we expected. let s bring in federal and whi white collar criminal defense attorney. we heard democratic congressman david sicily that if these allegations are true, if whitaker was asked by the president to put jeffrey berman in to oversee the cohen probe in the southern district, that that would constitute obstruction of justice. would it? it would. it would definitely be part of a larger pattern or practice, a mosaic theory of the case. we now have three investigations that it s alleged that the president may have obstructed. the first being the michael flynn investigation, the second being sort of the larger russia
that is, an effort to use the levers of power of the government for a corrupt purpose. would that be obstruction? yes. well, it would be attempted obstruction. it is unclear what whitaker did in response to the president s call. there is no evidence that he took action. the justice department says whitaker made no commitments but does not flatly deny the investigation was discussed. but trump was not shy about making a blanket denial. did you asask matthew whitak to change the leadership of the investigation into michael cohen? no, not at all. i don t know who gave you that. that is more fake news. there is a lot of fake news out. reporter: good morning. president trump is denying that he ever made that ask of former a.g. matt whitaker to have jeffrey berman oversee the cohen
sources say that trump was upset about the cohen probe and how it implicated him in the payments to two women during the election. you will recall that, and that he did spoke with whitaker about it over the phone. the president thought whitaker should do a better job of krog the investigators in the probe that he oversaw as acting attorney general. during recent congressional testimony whitaker would only say he won t discuss conversations with the president when asked if he spoke to him about the sdny investigation. i want to know whether you talked to president trump at all about the southern district of new york s case involving michael cohen. congresswoman, as i ve mentioned several times today, i am not going to discuss my private conversations with the president of the united states. in contrast he told the committee he never spoke about the mueller probe to president trump. at no time has the white house asked for, nor have i provided, any promises or commitments concern