House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) revealed Wednesday new allegations of former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker’s conduct while leading the Justice Department — allegations that Nadler described as the main “takeaways” from the committee’s closed door meeting with Whitaker.
Nadler said that Whitaker was “directly involved in conversations about whether to fire one or more U.S. attorneys.”
The committee chairman also said that Whittaker “was involved in conversation about the scope of the recusal” of Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, from the Michael Cohen investigation, as well as whether the prosecutors there went “too far in pursuing the campaign finance case” that implicated the President.
Nadler also claimed that Whitaker “did not deny” that Trump called Whitaker to discuss Cohen’s case and personnel decisions surrounding it, as had been reported by the New York Times. At a public hearing last month, Whitaker denied a report by CNN that Trump “lashed out” at him about the Cohen investigation in New York.
Nadler, on Wednesday, did not elaborate on what exactly Whitaker said behind closed doors about the phone call.
“He would not say no,” is all Nadler would say.
Nadler claims Whitaker was involved in conversations about whether to fire one or more U.S. attorneys pic.twitter.com/M7T64mAhTo
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) March 13, 2019
