harry reid was the majority leader so he did a recess appointment. she was subsequently, after harry reid change the rules, where only a majority were needed for presidential nominees, so she s been controversial even to her own party. she s taken positions that are 180 degrees from the trump administration when it comes to religious freedom. so i applaud senator mike lee, spoken with him a number of times about this particular case, i applaud him for taking a stand in defense of religious liberty. she reflects an era of the past, the barack obama era of hostility toward religious freedom. we don t need her on the eeoc leading that commission forward. shannon: tony, you know how this works. the president has the opportunity to appoint members, the majority of members, 3-2, five members of the eeoc that represent his majority party but he goes to the democrats for their nominations and their suggestions on the other two members. she is a current sitting member of the commission. so he
welcome back. acting attorney general matthew whitaker has decided to completely ignore the advice of his own ethics office at the department of justice. they recommended that because he s been so critical of the mueller probe, that he recuse himself from overseeing it. let s remind you, one of the criticisms that whitaker had of the mueller probe back in july of 2017, on this network, let s roll it. i could see a scenario where jeff sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and the attorney general doesn t fire bob mueller but he just reduces the budget so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt. our justice reporter laura jarrett who broke the news joins me now. he is that replacement, for now.
about the mueller report. i could see a scenario where jeff sessions is replaced with recess appointment and that attorney general doesn t fire bob mueller but he just reduces the budget so low his investigation grinds to almost a halt. what we weren t clear at the time is that seemed to be a job interview tape because he s the guy who replaced jeff sessions who could just do the things that he said that jeff sessions could do. a reasonable person could surmise that this guy has not only a prejudice against the mueller investigation but has actually thought out how to stymie it. yeah, that s right. and that s exactly why the department of ethics officials recommended he recuse. look, they tried to dance around what happened in this letter, but i think what the department of ethics officials recommended is something pretty normal and pretty standard of people that work at the department like i did are used to. oftentimes you ll come to ethics officials with situations i they might
whether or not it goes publicmism i think this is really important because if that report comes out or gets given to the justice department in mid-february, goes to rod rosenstein, what are you saying? that whitaker can put inside a desk and lock it? in theory, he could, ali, but we have reporting he s told associates that he believes there s a need to make at least some of this public. there will be issue said with classified information and grand jury secrecy and it s not going to be an easy process and it may take a long time, but i think everyone in washington understands that you can t just put the mueller report in a drawer. there s a public demand to get some answers on this investigation. joining us now is matt miller. matt, ken was speaking about something that i think most of our viewers know but i think it s worth reminding them of stuff that matt whitaker has said. here s just one example from july 26, 2017, it s what he had about the mueller report. i could see a sce
sessions might try to shut it down. i can see where jeff sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and the attorney general doesn t fire mueller but reduces his budget so low that the investigation grinds to a halt. reporter: rosenstein who rarely talks about the mueller probe offers words of assurance that the president sun tainted. bob mueller or rod rosenstein or matt whitaker or bill barr, that investigation is going to be handled appropriately by the department of justice. reporter: now that matthew whitaker has officially decided not to recuse, it s expected he ll be briefed on the mueller probe since he was never updated during the ethics review process. jake, we do know that whitaker was given a heads up just before the president s former personal attorney michael cohen pleaded guilty up in new york a few weeks ago. jessica schneider, thanks so much. trump says we ve defeated isis one minute and next he says other countries will need to fight isis instead of th