acting attorney general, matt whitaker about trying to get the u.s. attorney in new york back on the cohen case even though he recused himself. where is the legal line of obstruction here? it s such a unique situation. basically trump s trying to put his thumb on the scale a little bit. he s thinking that berman is going to be friendly to him, maybe he ll quash the investigation. that action reflects his fundamental misunderstanding of two things, recusal and human nature. berman as a public official is saying i m conflicted, i have to recuse, i can t do an impartial job of prosecutoring her iprose. no matter what trump has whitaker say, they can t change that. you can t force him to say i m not unbiassed. secondly that s a man who s worked his whole life to get to a pinnacle. he s going to be the united states attorney for the southern district of new york. he s not a lifelong lackey to
that war has included attacks by the president on our first guest tonight, andrew mccabe, and his wife. much of the times reports today is a cohesive assembly. most of it is what we already know and what s already been revealed on the president s war on the investigators, including special counsel robert mueller and his staffer. but the lead item in the times report shows the president once again stepping up to the line, if not crossing the line, of obstruction of justice. the times reports that shortly after firing attorney general jeff sessions, the president called matthew g. whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. he asked whether jeffrey berman, the united states attorney for the southern district of new york and a trump ally could be put in charge of the widening investigation. that was, of course, a widening investigation in which the president of the united states had already been effectively
revealed on the president s war on the investigators, including special counsel robert mueller and his staffer. but the lead item in the times report shows the president once again stepping up to the line, if not crossing the line, of obstruction of justice. the times reports that shortly after firing attorney general jeff sessions, the president called matthew g. whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. he asked whether jeffrey berman, the united states attorney for the southern district of new york and a trump ally could be put in charge of the widening investigation. that was, of course, a widening investigation in which the president of the united states had already been effectively named an unindicted co-conspirator in federal court in manhattan. an unindicted co-conspirator who committed crimes with michael cohen and ordered michael cohen to commit crimes in arranging payoffs for the silence of two women in the final days of the presidential campaign.
they re saying a phone call was made. here s the full screen. in the phone call, the president asked whether jeffery berman, the united states attorney for the southern district of new york and a trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, the cohen investigation, according to several american officials with district knowledge of the call asking him, could we put my ally in charge of this cohen thing because it just went badly. in essence, according to the reading of that, making him an unindicted co conspirator. and matt whitaker just testified that the president referred to that testimony and answered the question from one of the reporters that he had not been asked to influence any decisions that the doj was being asked to make. shepard: is that the same thing though? what he said was could you put this guy in charge. could he be put in charge. the semantics matter. they do. the two potential crimes here for matt whitaker.
the ongoing investigations, this is a real this say real issue, right? where there are a lot of things that michael cohen would not be able to talk about and it would be very difficult to navigate that, presumably, but if you were his lawyer how would you have advised him? well, if i were the united states attorney for the southern district of new york, slightly different answer than you re seeking from me, i would not want him to testify because this is an active investigation. i think if i were robert mueller and the special counsel s office i would probable not want this spectacle to unfold. i wouldn t want michael cohen s moment in the sun until after we ve put forth our respective reports or report and have had our word on this because otherwise i think that it might be something that gives up information as to an area of our inquiry that the public is not yet in the loop on. michael, you can stand by for me. i want to bring in manu raju on