question of classified material being released because michael cohen didn t have access to classified material. so that won t be an impediment with the other transcripts or other transcripts. again, the one dynamic keeping the transcripts from being released right now is and you can draw the conclusion and infer what you will from this, we will almost certainly want to bring in additional witnesses as a result of the testimony that michael cohen gave in the two days before my committee and we won t necessarily want those witnesses to know exactly what it was that michael cohen provided or said about them. and just lastly, i want to get your take on the breaking story, former acting attorney general whitaker would not deny the president called him to discuss the cohen case as well as personnel decisions in the southern district according to congressman nadler. yeah, that is correct. and i guess it surprises pretty much no one that matthew whitaker, when he was acting attorney gene
to the failed effort to prosecute former senator john edwards on similar charges. and this is according to gop aides who were in the room, anderson. i don t quite understand how nadler and the democrat and the republican can have such diametrically opposed accounting of what whitaker actually said and the meaning of it. is the transcript going to be released? is there any way to tell what whitaker actually said? well, unfortunately for us, this was behind closed doors today. there is no transcript. so like most things in life, it will come down to credibility determination and whose side you believe and which one sounds more like the facts. all right. laura jarret, thanks. you ll recall the question of whether the president asked him acting attorney general to take action against the southern district. it has come up before. such as this moment not long after whitaker s testimony. did you ask acting attorney general matthew whitaker to
attorney general, but whitaker and kennedy were close in terms of qualifications. okay. kirsten, here we are again. two heads of the committee, the democrat and republican, with two directly opposite versions of what happened. it s and this makes me nervous because we don t really know what happened or what was said. right. well, the thing is that congressman nadler is saying that he pressed him and he wasn t answering the question. so that is not the same thing as necessarily giving an answer. in the public testimony he was basically saying he wasn t going to talk about conversations that he had with the president. and so i think him not answering shouldn t be construed as somehow giving information. i do think it is true that he isn t seen as being probably the most trustworthy person in the sense that he was hired clearly as a trump loyalist who wasn t qualified for the job.
question is what did the president say and that is what tonight s new reporting could shed light on. i say could because it is in question. cnn justice correspondent lara jarrett starts us off. so what exactly did whitaker say today and again, according to chairman nadler s accounting of events? well anderson, nadler said that whitaker didn t deny that the president called him to discuss the case of his former lawyer michael cohen and other personnel decisions in the southern district of new york. a little bit vague there about what exactly was discussed. and nadler said that whitaker was involved in conversations about the recusal of jeffy berman in the southern district of new york and whether prosecutors went too far to pursue the campaign finance case against cohen. why does this matter, now that whitaker is gone? as you said, it goes to the question of whether the president was trying to put his thumb on the scale in some way or influence the investigations into cohen where he w
i don t have confidence in the veracity of the tweet. i m asking you under oath. congressman, that is based on unsubstantiated sir, answer the question yes or no. did he lash out to you about the guilty plea? no, he did not. according to the former acting attorney general, president trump did not quote lash out at him. the real question is what did the president say? and that s what tonight s new reporting could shed light on. i say could because it s in question. cnn justice correspondent lara jarrett starts us off. so what exactly did whitaker say today and again, according to chairman nadler s accounting of events? well anderson, nadler said that whitaker didn t deny that the president called him to discuss the case of his former lawyer michael cohen and other personnel decisions in the southern district of new york. a little bit vague there about what exactly was discussed. and nadler said that whitaker was involved in conversations about the recuse of a of u.s. attorne