what they have basically told us to do by the numbers that were voted in on the democratic side. what they are asking for is transparency in their government. they re asking for honesty, and they re asking the congress to simply do its job under the constitution. they understand that every two years we swear to uphold the constitution of the united states of america. and part of that, rachel, of that oath is about the business of being a check on executive branch. they should expect that, and i promise you, they will get that. you and your colleagues sent what amounted to a very stern preservation notice to the white house counsel s office and lots of other government agencies that may have come into contact with the special counsel s office at some point during the investigation, everything from the fbi to the cia to the nsa to the treasury department to the irs. why did you send that preservation notice today. are you concerned that evidence
mueller s investigation to be in charge of mueller s investigation. but if the acting attorney general concludes in words that afford him a fair amount of discretion that an action is so inappropriate to a degree of inappropriateness or unwarranted that it shall not be pursued, he can step in and say otherwise. so it s not that then it just triggers a reporting obligation on the part of the attorney general? that s right. it s that the attorney general can actually prevent the action from happening? that is our understanding of the regulations, the preamble to the regulations makes clear that that is part of the arsenal of powers that the acting attorney general has. it s not just that they have to report if they do something. they can actually stop you from doing it. the arsenal of powers that the acting attorney general has. or the kinds of powers one would not expect the justice department to allow to be placed into the hands of somebody who was completely personally
so that supervisory officials in the department are aware of them. the investigations also specifically provide that the acting attorney general can ask the special counsel for an explanation of any investigatory step. so he is aware of what we re doing, and he can ask for an explanation of it. it is not the case of the special counsel is off wandering in a free-floating environment and can decide on his own when to report. there s a reporting obligation. he s aware of what we re doing and he can ask for an explanation of it. there is a reporting obligation. top prosecutor from mueller s office saying that all major events in the special counsel s office investigation, all major stuff has to be reported up the chain of command. so that supervisory officials in the department are aware of those events. quote, ultimate accountability lies in the attorney general, in this case the acting attorney general. this is why it s such a big deal that president trump has just installed his hand-
able to try to shut them down. this is the first description that we had. and we get it directly from one of the top prosecutors working mueller s case. we ve got tape of it. i believe we re the first people to broadcast this nationwide. the first voice you re going to hear is one of the judges on the three-judge panel. the person who answers the questions is michael dreeben from the special counsel s office. can i just ask you a couple of detailed questions on the constitutional question and specifically about the way that supervision is exercised? so there is the provision that talks about the attorney general finding that something the special counsel wants to do is so inappropriate or unwarranted under established department practices that it should not be pursued. correct. do you understand that to mean that the if the attorney general makes that assessment, then that the special counsel can t take the step? we do. the attorney general makes that assessment, decides so
the sole purpose of giving matt whitaker an affiliation to put under his name when goes on cable news shows and right-wing radio, to be a full-time anti-hillary clinton, anti-robert mueller pundit. over the course of this afternoon and into this evening, what has started to emerge is his extensive record of public criticism, public attacks on the mueller investigation the president has now put him in charge of. the special counsel s investigation led by robert mueller into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the question of whether the trump campaign colluded in that attack. mr. whittaker has just been installed directly by president trump to oversee that investigation. mr. whitaker quite clearly is a person who has already made up his mind about the key questions at the heart of that investigation. i think we would know if there was a smoking gun, or any gun, or any smoke. i think we would know. i think we would know if there was evidence suggesting that there