mueller and jim comey are bffs and go way back. and this is a tweett from the summer. mueller is comey s best friend. witch hunt. and comey says he has not been to mueller s house, and does not know the name of his children. what do we know? they are not friends, but they are now allies. allies in the most politically-charged investigation of a president in our history, and that investigation is now under threat. the ethics office at justice has said that acting attorney general whitaker who is deeply hostile to mueller does not have to are recuse himself. trump s nominee to become attorney general bill barr has expressed deep hostility to mueller and his investigation, and the only qualification that trump wants in the attorney general is someone who will try to the shut bob mueller down.
more news about the mueller investigation. acting attorney general matthew whitaker is cleared to oversee the russia probe. the justice department ethics officials say whitaker does not have to recuse himself from overseeing the mueller investigation despite his past suggestions on how to stop it. this as we re learning that attorney general nominee william barr sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the justice department this year criticizing mueller s obstruction of justice probe against president trump writing that in part, quote, mueller should not be permitted to demand that the president submit to interrogation about alleged obstruction. meanwhile, the mueller team today seems to be closing in on former trump associate roger stone. just a few minutes ago, we learned that the house intel committee excuse me the
this ethics opinion that whitaker apparently asked for. because i don t think there s any ethics lawyer at the department of justice who could say whitaker is not conflicted based on his prior judgments of the investigation. there was a lot of talk earlier in the week and some reporting that i think michael isikoff was having based on some sources who say people around mueller were saying they were kind of trying wrap things up. given what we saw in the filing earlier this week, given that we re expecting more tomorrow on manafort and cohen, do you believe this investigation is wrapping up or do you think there s a long way to go still? well, if you are looking at this as a traditional bottom up investigation, it certainly looks like it s reaching its end because you know, it started with michael flynn and george papadopoulos is the earliest of people to be indicted and then paul manafort. and now you ve seen michael cohen, the president s lawyer, who lived in his personal world, h
the russia probe. denny heck joined me. he sits on the house intelligence committee. nice to have you. let me begin with whether you join some of urfellow democrats in congress who say whitaker must recuse himself from the mueller probe. do you believe he can adequately oversee it? i think matthew whitaker s appointment was unconstitutional, illegal, and just plain wrong. it s unconstitutional because he s not been subjected to the confirmation process. illegal because he violated the a.g. succession statute and plain wrong because we re learning things about his background that should have been exposed in the vetting process. he s frankly not qualified to be the attorney general. on the law, on the constitutionality of it, two points i would make. the federal vacancies reform act of 1998 lays out that the president can appoint someone to a position like this if they served in that department for at least 90 days, which he has. then when you look at precedent
permanent replacement is confirmed. white house officials say whitaker himself could be nominated. other names on the short list include other staunch political supporters of the president. his personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, and chris christie, now an abc news contributor, who ran the trump transition during the campaign. christie told david he would consider taking the job. you always take a call from your president, no matter which party. and you listen to what he has to say. reporter: david, whitaker could remain the acting attorney general for up to seven months. he is running the department of justice at a critical time. abc news has learned that special counsel robert mueller is in the process of writing his final report. david? all right, stay tuned on this front. jon karl tonight. thank you. next this evening, a new health care for security justice ruth bader ginsburg, causing her to miss an important ceremony today. at 85, justice ginsburg is the oldest justice on the