special relationship or he believes he has a special relationship with the white house. which makes people at the justice department very nervous. and so there s been a lot of tension between whitaker and the attorney general. jeff sessions. and with the deputy attorney general. i think that s the thing to watch today, and in the coming days, how that relationship really kind of manifests itself. he was the attorney general s chief of staff. you re chief of staff, you need a good relationship with your chief of staff. exactly. i mean, normally, a chief of staff is you know, has the back of his boss. in this case, it appeared to be some kind of shakespearean drama going on behind the scenes, where the knives were out, and no one knew who was going to get stabbed next. and so they sort of forced him on sessions, right? yes, they did. this was he didn t really have a relationship beforehand. and so this is one of those things where there was a lot of suspicion about whitaker
this, jeff sessions had been advised to recuse himself. he didn t physically have to. but it would have looked really bad if he had not recused himself. he was part of the campaign. and that was his argument. president trump didn t see it that way. so even if matt whitaker is strongly advised, you need to recuse yourself because of the comments you ve made about the mueller investigation, it raises the question of if he feels he has the backing of president trump and doesn t have to, will he do that? and his temporary status really is a disincentive for even the ethical offices at doj to say that he would be required to if it was not the appearance. jeff sessions was slated to be the attorney general for presumably a four-year term if not for consecutive terms, if the president got re-elected. you re talking about somebody in matt whitaker who is not confirmed by the senate. therefore, he could not serve more than 210 days, if at all, under the vacancies reform act. somebody wh
the way you traditionally say goodbye to attorneys general. i was there when eric holder walked out of the building. there were tears. people were clapping, just exactly like this. obviously, the circumstances today are so, so different. because, you know, eric holder wasn t fired as this attorney general was today. preet, i m anxious to get your thoughts on the treatment of rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general. how much of a slap in the face is it for the deputy attorney general, the number two person at the department of justice, to be bypassed by the president and the president naming sessions chief of staff to now become the acting attorney general instead of rosenstein? i don t know if it s any more of a slap in the face than, you know, the embarrassing things that the president has been saying about him from time to time. we had that moment a few weeks ago when it appeared he had been summoned to the white house and was going to be fired and that didn t happen. and there w
was apparently pressing the attorney general on behalf of the president, as well, in this resignation was wanted over here at the white house. and so obviously the president now is getting what he wants. he s getting rid of jeff sessions, who had recused himself on the russia investigation. keep in mind, rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general, he was overseeing the russia investigation, because jeff sessions had recused himself. now that is no longer needed, matt whitaker is free to oversee this investigation in terms of how the justice department and the white house, how they both view it at this point. and so that is a favorable development, obviously, for the president to have somebody like matt whitaker, who has, as i said, been parroting what the white house has said about this investigation with the president. is now in charge of the investigation and overseeing the investigation. wolf? what are you learning about how it was actually done, how the president fired sessions and
which saw democrats seized control of the house of representatives while republicans tightened their hold on the senate. the president s tone was combative, suggesting concern over his brand-new vulnerability to democratic-led investigations. democrats are now vowing to protect the special counsel s probe. i ll speak with congressman joaquin castro of the intelligence committee and our correspondents and specialists. they are standing by with full coverage. first, let s go straight to our chief white house correspondent, jim acosta. jim, first of all, what is the very, very latest? reporter: wolf, we have a new acting attorney general, his name is matt whitaker. he has been a cnn legal contributor in the past. but has also been the chief of staff to the outgoing attorney general, jeff sessions. wolf, we have a letter of resignation we could put up on screen from the attorney general. obviously, this was a forced letter of resignation, or a firing from the president. and as you can