understood that that s the fundamental jury they have to influence. you were a u.s. attorney with matt whitaker. i was. there s a lot of people making assumptions. i know i m a little bit these assumptions he s going to act ethically well. he s taken that oath before. i like to remind people that you never know what people are going. to do the minute they suddenly have the power. i think that s an important point. and i draw a distinction between what i us hope and what i fear. what i hope is that the gravity of the office impresses him. that the gravity of the department of justice which pulls people towards norms and rules pulls him in that same direction. like jeff sessions with recusal. correct. what i fear is that he was put there because he s already sort of cleared hurdles and articulated his disdain for the mueller investigation. i hope my hope wins out. he may want the job
himself. we have an ethics war with the ethics officials undertake analysis on whether the acting ag should recuse. he refuses to submit to that opinion. twa are you saying number one the normal process is to request it. that what happened with sessions. he got the advice to step aside and did. number two, you are saying if this person doesn t recuse, there is something important to back it up. donald trump told people, whitaker is loyal and would not have recuse himself from the investigation, according to multiple people in the washington post today. you are say figure that doesn t happen, there could still be the ethics effort to push this up. how would they do that and would that be good for the probe and good for the country i guess? well, it s possible that ethics officials within the department and the ethics process is centered in the deputy attorney general s office, rod rosenstein s office, they could initiate some process
get it? hole? that is a punch card. trust me, there is a signature issue in duval county. oh, good luck, america. that s all tonight. the beat with ari melber starts now. good evening. we have an interview with the top prosecutor who ran this probe and served in the obama justice department. also the incoming chairman on the house intel committee is already making moves to protect mueller against trump s new acting attorney general. we will get into it live. later in the show, my first breakdown of what i think tuesday meant. why the blue wave is so large and some are intent on making you think oils. we met a man quickly becoming the most famous lawyer in america and one of the most controversial. acting attorney mathieu whitaker. breaking right now, we just got
and put so many officials on notice and what happens if he does not recuse, mr. whitaker? we came out right away. the president is creating a constitutional crisis, his actions fit a clear pattern of interference and attempting of sabotage of the special counsel s investigation. and we think it s very important that the president be put on notice that he is not above the law and the american people will not tolerate his trying to act like a tyrant and a monarch, not like a president. this is who the president said about you and your colleague s investigations yesterday. they want to do things, you know, i keep hearing about investigations. they can play that game. but we can play it better. because we have a thing called the united states senate. they can look at us and we can look at them and it will go back and forth and it will probably be very good for me politically.
indictments, would he need whitaker s ascent? he will be reporting to whit kerr. under the regs that apply, he will have to socialize with the department of justice in a substantial decisions pr acknowledgmentles he wants to take. so if there is charging digs he wants to make that he hasn t communicated to the department, that will have to go to whitaker. if there are litigation decision to condition test through the courts,ests to avoid contempt citation like mr. stone s associate, that will have to be socialized with the department of justice. when a report is transmitted to the department, how is that going to be resolved? who will decide whether the report whole or in part goes to congress or is made public in whole or in part. all those things we cared critically about. now all roads point to mr. whitaker and how he will handle that. you laid it out. with your extraordinary experience, i appreciate you giving us some insights on the