Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was pushed to cough up some names of the advisors with whom he consulted in deciding not to recuse himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
“Name me some names, sir,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) told Whitaker, as Whitaker tried to revert to a canned answer about his recusal decision-making process.
After some pressing, Whitaker said he spoke to Steve Engel, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, and Curtis Gannon, Engel’s principal deputy. He also discussed the decision with Brad Weinsheimer, a career DOJ official, he said.
Whitaker said that the decision not to recuse was ultimately his to make.
“I stand by that decision,” he said.
Dem Rep. asks Whitaker to name poeple who advised him on recusal pic.twitter.com/mNEmvcvUdR
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) February 8, 2019
