MATTHEW WHITAKER: There is no criminal obstruction of justice charge to be had here. There's just -- the evidence is weak. No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case on what we know right now, and -- you know, because it all boils down to what was the president's intent, and we really don't have any evidence of what the president's intent was. The investigation continues on. He still hasn't -- he didn't stop it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that's Matthew Whitaker in 2017, who has been -- now is temporarily taking charge of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' -- former Attorney General Jeff Sessions' position. So, could you talk about -- I mean, he will now be overseeing the Russia probe. So, can you talk about -- I mean, this is a guy who's come out explicitly to say that the Russia probe goes too far and that there is not likely to be any evidence of collusion or, you know, Trump being implicated. So, talk about some of the concerns about that.
DAVID COLE: So, you know, the whole purpose of having a special counsel is to ensure that there's some independence in an investigation of high-level executive branch officials -- here, the highest level, the president of the United States. And now Trump has fired the person who followed the rules of ethics and stepped aside to ensure that independence, and has put in place a man who got his job by being loyal to the president. And that raises really serious concerns.
Now, the law provides that the attorney general cannot fire the special counsel, except for dereliction of duty, misconduct, good cause and the like. So, you can't fire him just because you disagree with what he's doing. But there's no appeal. There's no opportunity to take that to a court. There's a bipartisan bill in Congress that would put that protection in place, but, you know, unlikely that that's going to go anywhere.
So, number one, he could fire him. Number two, even without firing him, he can put constraints on the special counsel's investigation by funding limits, by -- the special counsel is supposed to consult with and inform the attorney general of any significant developments.
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, he already said on CNN -- the question of just reduce the funding, and you'll effectively stop the investigation.
DAVID COLE: Right. He said that before he was in office. So, you know, the question is: Now that he's in office, has taken the oath, will he in fact undermine his oath to undermine this investigation? And I think -- you know, I think we all have to pay incredibly close attention to every step that he takes. And it's incumbent on the people, it's incumbent upon Congress, it's incumbent on the House, in particular, to hold this president accountable and make sure we get an accurate response --
AMY GOODMAN: So, the Democratic leaders --
DAVID COLE: -- to the question: Was there collusion?
AMY GOODMAN: The Democratic leaders Schumer and Pelosi have already sent letters demanding that no evidence be tampered with, no emails, no WhatsApp, no anything, tweets, texts, around the whole issue of the choice of Whitaker. And then you have the side-stepping around Rod Rosenstein, right? He was the number two man.
DAVID COLE: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: You had Whitaker, who was the chief of staff, who, reportedly -- Clovis, who was Trump's campaign manager, right? Clovis in Iowa -- Clovis told his pal Whitaker, "Get on TV. Get Trump's attention." And so he started saying these things on CNN about ending the Mueller probe. So now he moves into the Justice Department. He is chosen as the attorney general by Trump as he fires Sessions. Rod Rosenstein was the one who was in charge of this investigation. Even if Whitaker was made attorney general, he could have kept Rosenstein in charge, but he's not. So, talk about the significance of that and even the legality of this.
DAVID COLE: So, I think it's formally legal, in the sense that the president has the power to dismiss Sessions, has the power to appoint a chief of staff as the acting attorney general. And once you have an acting attorney general who is not recused, it's legal for that acting attorney general to be involved in overseeing the investigation. But it's, I think, an abuse of that power, if -- what certainly appears to be -- it is designed to obstruct justice. That's the thing. There are lots of things one can do legally, but if you do them for the purpose of obstructing justice, it's a crime. So, firing Comey, it's legal to fire the head of the FBI, but if he fired Comey in order to obstruct the investigation, that's a crime. And here, if he fired Sessions and put this loyalist in place to obstruct the investigation, that's a crime.
AMY GOODMAN: So, we're going to break and then come back, and we'll be joined by Liz Holtzman, as well, the youngest member of the Watergate committee. She was a U.S. congress-member from New York. The obvious question: Does this echo back to the Watergate times, to Richard Nixon? We're talking what? Some 45 years ago, Saturday Night Massacre, and what that exactly was. We're here on Democracy Now! talking about the Trump administration, President Trump firing his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Stay with us.
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