i did not talk about my views of the mueller investigation with anyone at the white house in this time period, essentially may of 2017 until i joined the department of justice in october of 2017. and when you throughout that process, did you ever communicate with any here s the question. by my count, you made six comments critical of the special counsel between the time you interviewed in june 2017 and the time you were hired as chief of staff to the attorney general. did you ever use any intermediaries, did you have anyone, since the president didn t know, did you have anyone communicate with the white house or anyone at the white house, either staff members, friends, or others, to let them know exactly where you stood as expressed in at least those six public statements? congressman, i had at the time you describe, may of 17 until i joined the department on october 4th of 2017, i didn t have a relationship with the white house. did you talk to any white
we re waiting for this vote? and you re watching a procedural argument between the chair, jerry nadler, and the vice chair, the republican, over whether or not a question from karen bass is relevant, because she is questioning his qualifications or she tried to finish a question, she did not finish her question, the question went to what he did before he became acting attorney general. the fact is that there are a lot of questions being asked about why the decision was made to pluck him out of the justice department, put him into this role, even though there is a succession law which rules that someone to succeed a retiring or departing attorney general or other cabinet official should be someone who has been already confirmed by the senate. with me here, elliott williams, legal adviser, msnbc contributor, and joyce vance as well, former deputy assistant attorney general. let s talk about just the legal
would be inappropriate for me to talk about any other memos related to that. we already know there s been some modification of the broadest order i think you can have with this august 2nd, 2017 memo. all i m asking is, are there any other modifications, any other changes to the parameters of an investigation into the president of the united states? the time of the gentleman has expired. the witness may answer. congressman, just to be clear, the special counsel understands the scope of its investigation and is complying with all the regulations and orders related to that. thank you, mr. chairman. general whitaker, you and i are both lawyers. my first day of criminal law, my professor came in and said, if someone asks you a yes-or-no question, don t repeat the question, just answer the question. in november 2018 we didn t,
job, did you ever speak with the president about the mueller probe in 2017? are you saying before i was actually the chief of staff? i m saying between may 17, 2017 congressman, i never met the president until after i joined let me ask you another question. did you communicate with anyone at the white house about the special counsel investigation before september 22nd, 2018? i assume you re excluding my appearances on cnn. because i don t know if the white house was watching my appearances. you ve told me that the president wasn t watching those, otherwise he would have been aware of your positions. so i assume the president wasn t watching. did you talk about those appearances with anyone at the white house? i did not talk about my appearances on cnn. did you talk about your views of the mueller investigation with anyone at the white house?
specific about this because you are right, we investigate crimes, not individuals. that s why i m asking the question. i would like a yes or no answer. are there names mentioned under this redacted portion of this memo? as i mentioned before, that memo props up a confidential investigation, as is every department of justice simple question, mr. whitaker. are there names, specific american names, mentioned in this redacted, 70% redacted memo that happens two and a half months after the special counsel gets his order to start his investigation where he was given had broadest latitude you can possibly have? the time of the gentleman has expired. the witness may answer the question. i would just refer the congressman to the general practices to the department of justice, that we investigate crimes and not individuals. mr. cohen. thank you, mr. chair. mr. attorney general, the inspector general of the gsa had