time fully explaining why he felt the need to recuse himself. i was one of the people that had knowledge of this. i had frequent contact with the media. i had to make sure this investigation was seen as one that was independent to avoid even the possibility of an appearance of the possibility of a conflict. white house feels like the justice department and irs feels like those are two agencies they can t micro manage, but this out of our hands argument is one they may only be able to make several times without sustaining longer political damage of this idea and it s a constant criticism of this president, that he s too much of an observer of his p presidency sometimes. isn t hands on enough. the question for the moment for the white house and for much of washington is whether this is a temporary distraction or the beginning of his second term.