Incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday said it’s “wrong on every level” for President Trump to discuss the federal investigation and prosecution of his former lawyer with acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
“The president of the United States is discussing a case in which he’s implicated with the attorney general. That is wrong at every level and of course it will taint anything this acting attorney general does,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“This is a real assault on the rule of law and we’re going to scrutinize every single action by Matt Whitaker so the public knows just what he does,” Schiff, who will become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when Democrats take over the House majority in September, added.
Trump vented his frustration with the investigation with Whitaker in recent weeks, according to reporting by CNN, voicing anger over prosecutors implicating the president in a scheme to pay hush money to women with the president allegedly had extra-marital affairs.
Schiff said on Sunday that those conversations, if they happened, would be highly improper. He noted that Whitaker has been advised not to supervise the prosecution of Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
“The ethics lawyers told him that he should not participate, should not supervise this investigation, that the public wouldn’t have confidence in his judgments and now we learn they’re discussing the case,” Schiff said.
He argued that Whitaker shouldn’t have any supervisory role over the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, which has prosecuted Cohen, “because you’re required to remove yourself when there’s an appearance of a conflict of interest.”
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Schiff: It's "wrong on every level" for Trump to talk about federal investigations with acting AG https://t.co/5aFstMR7Hl pic.twitter.com/60ixyNkb6o
— The Hill (@thehill) December 23, 2018
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