consistent. did you talk to him about this issue at all? again, i m not here to talk about the internal discussions that i have with it s really critical. with all due respect, this is not an ongoing this has nothing to do with an ongoing investigation. what it has got to do with is mr. rosenstein in his role as an unbiased overseer of the mueller investigation. so it s not directly dealing with the investigation. it deals with his capacity to be unbiased. so i m not asking whether i m trying to get into the substance or even the periphery. i want to know, did you have a conversation with mr. rosenstein about his comments as reported? do you go congressman, this is an important question to you, but are not going to answer aboy conversations with deputy attorney general rosenstein. i believe they are deliberative. obviously i am exercising the full i get it. the full responsibility s of the position. i preach at that. i know that answer is important
to say it? if you could do it all along, why do you have to put in a mem memo? congressman jordan, first of all, because of general sessions recusal from the special counsel s investigation, i was also recused from that investigation. so i was not i m not asking that. i m asking, you said you were fully briefed you were asking you why at the time rod rosenstein i m asking you why two and half months after the broadest order you can have, why did rod rosenstein say, hey, you can do this all along, but i m putting in a memo question can i tell you what really troubles me, mr. whitaker? right after that statement, the following allegations at the time of your appointment and are within the scope of the order. but after that, you know what happens? everything is redacted. look at this. the whole darn thing. so if you could do it all along, i do have to send a memo to him, two and half months later, and then he reject everything after
properly prepared. that was to sheena gahar. and she reported directly to rosenstein. the a.g. should have somebody that should report directly to the a.g. and not go through rod rosenstein, and especially when they are setting the attorney general up to be harmed. but this and then anthony faronti, apparently he s the senior managing director of fti consulting, he was another one that some considered a career position at the doj. let s see, he had jordan kelly there. she s currently director of cyber security policy and response at the nsc to the white house. there are reports that she met routinely with the mueller investigators. you know, between these people
enclosure that mr. rosenstein told the special counsel he could go into any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. if matters arose from the investigation directly on indirectly that the trump family owed lots of money to russian oligarchs and people real close to putin and that affected the actions that they took as the president of the united states on behalf of the united states of america, would you agree that was not crossing a red line but in fact was a red line from moscow that we need to look into? congressman, when i made that statement, i was a private citizen and had no publicly available information. i only had publicly available information, and so i made that as a commentator and not as the acting attorney general of the united states. i am very familiar with the responsibilities of my office as acting attorney general, and we make our decisions based on the law and the facts on a case-by-case basis. so that s no longer your opinion? it s not
and there is you know, congressman, i appreciate your tone, that this oversight hearing is not a hearing about the type of things that we re talking about but to the chairman sent me a letter specifically outlining things that he wanted to talk about, and i don t feel like we ve talked about many of those things. so i m glad that you offered that opportunity to talk about the department of justice s efforts, reducing gun violence. thank you, attorney general. i would like to yield the remainder of my time to congressman jordan. i appreciate the gentleman yielding. mr. whitaker, are there any other memos, any other memos that mr. rosenstein has sent to mr. mueller that we don t know about and if we did, would be redacted like the one that happened on august 2nd, 2017? congressman, as you know, the investigation is ongoing and it