Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker denied reports that President Trump lashed out at him about the Michael Cohen case, in which the Trump was alluded to as “individual 1.”
Whitaker at first attempted to dodge answering the question directly, pointing instead to Trump’s tweet denying the report.
With more pressing from Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), Whitaker denied that the President lashed out at him about Cohen’s guilty plea, denied that anyone lashed out at him on Trump’s behalf, and denied that anyone from the White House reached out to him to express dissatisfaction with the case.
CNN reported in December, based on multiple unnamed sources, that Trump vented to Whitaker over the court documents filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan in the case, which described actions taken by the President (though did not explicitly name Trump). The President expressed his displeasure at least twice, according to CNN, with the first episode occurring in November after Cohen’s guilty plea to lying to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project.
Whitaker called the report “unsubstantiated.”
