Blockbuster report. Im going to end illegal immigration. On a pipeline of undocumented workers from costa rica to Donald Trumps golf course. With immigration, you better be smart and you better be tough and theyre taking your jobs. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. In for chris hayes. Fwlrs the president appointed Matt Whitaker to be the acting attorney general last fall, violating the Justice Departments ord of succession and possibly the constitution, they believed had everything to do with his loyalty to donald trump and his public hostility to the Mueller Investigation. In his combative, often evasive testimony before the house judiciary committee, whitaker did little to ease concerns that hes nothing more than a political hack, installed to run interference for the president. The acing attorney general defended his decision to not recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller Investigation, despite having been advised to do so by ethics officials. Then he denied interfering with the investigation or discussing it with the president but given the opportunity too declare the legitimacy of the special counsels work, whit canker declined to do so. Guilty pleas from manafort, flynn, papadopoulos and dozens of indictments including 13 russian nationals, three Russian Companies and roger stone. Would you say the spemgs counsels investigation is a witch hunt . Are you over seeing a witch hunt . Congressman, as ive mentioned previously the special counsels investigation is an Ongoing Investigation and so i think it would inappropriate youd stop a witch hunt, wouldnt you . It would be inappropriate for me to talk about an Ongoing Investigation. Despite having interviewed for a job at the white house as lead attorney dealing with with muellers probe, his personal views on the investigation just never came up with anyone inside the president s orbit. Did they talk to you about your prior opinions on the Mueller Investigation . No, we did not discuss it. We discussed my background as a United States attorney and my legal practice. Youre asking whether i talked with anybody about my views of the special counsels investigation when i was a private citizen and not at the department of justice . Correct. No, i did not. The clearest evidence of how he understands his role was his attitude towards the democrats on the house judiciary committee. Have you ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the special counsel . Mr. Chairman, i see that your five minutes is up. You said youre not interfering with the special counsels investigation. Have you denied him any funds hes requested at all . I can tell this is an important issue for you. It is for the American Public and the whole world. I dont know if your time has been restored or not. Mr. Attorney general, were not joking here and your humor is not acceptable. Five minutes for lunch. Wow, Committee Chairman nadler said hes not done with whitaker and threatened to subpoena him to get the answers democrats demand. My next guest questioned him today. Democratic congressman steve cohen of tennessee. First all of i have to get your reaction to that testimony you heard today. Both to his demeanor ands in many cases his refusal to answer yes and no questions. Well, he came tine stone wall us. He had an audience of one, which is donald trump and when he was a Football Player and i could see him as a Football Player, he was a tight end and thats generally a blocker in the iowa program. Hes still in the same role he was when he plied for the iowa hawk eyes. He didnt show me anything to say he should be the United States attorney general. Ive met many and this man does not measure up to them in any way whatsoever. He was treading water and stone walling. And being prepretty a dis respectful to the chair and repeatedly saying an answer i can see this is a very important issue to him. Dud you feel he was there just to stone wall for time or being openly disrespectful as way of performing for donald trump . Its hard to say. Would you say like brautsy didnt understand things . I dont think hes very swift and with the republicans had the same stock start of saying congressman, i really thank you for asking that question and then finally cicilline says lets get through the thank you stuff. Dont say thank you and it was all a time can killer and they coached him where i know that questions important to you because he used that to mr. Jordan on the republican side and others as well. I think he was given certain talking points and he stayed on message. Chairman nadler indicated he doesnt feel hes done hearing from mr. Whitaker. Do you think theres any point in calling hum again . We8, hed be under oath again. And we could ask him the questions and i think hes going to start to realize the fact that he could be in jeopardy. He didnt answer the questions forth rightly. Its hard for me to believe that donald trump didnt can ask him as he did jim comey and others about the investigation and to have loyalty and be easy on flynn or those types of things. He was upset with sessions. He didnt have his own attorney general. And he wanted his own guy and whitaker comes out of nowhere. He wasnt in the line of succession. Goes through a group of officials that have been approve bide the senate. He was not one of them. So it was an aberration there and somebody most of his jobs have not been in the legal sector and what he had in the political world had been abject failure and had a encounters where he headed opcharity group and got 1. 2 million to do work and there was the suggestion a major republican contributor and friend of trumps might have been the person to give that 1. 2 million for him. For this guy out of iowa who didnt do much to show up in washington and be paid 1. 2 million, that talks about the influence of money in washington the pernishes nature of it and how hes been willing subject to it. Congressman steve cohen, appreciate your time tonight. And for more on the extraordinary testimony im joined by Chuck Rosenberg a torm foer u. S. Attorney and former senior official at the fbi. The testimony today was interesting. But some of the things some of the areas gone into was well, you just heard from the congressman, his background. Before mr. Whitaker became the acting attorney general he wrote this oped in which he said the Mueller Probe was going too far. Did you hear anything that would disabuse you of the notion that his goal in being acting attorney general is to interfere with that probe . I thought his performance was disgraceful. Ive toifred many times in congress. Sometimes the questions are good and thoughtful, sometimes theyre compound and incomprehensible but you have to answer every one with civility and your question. Loox, i dont know that hes the right guy for this job. In fact i know hes the wrong guy for the job. Im heartened by one thing, the u. S. Attorneys offices, fbi, are primarily if not exclusively staffed by career civil servants. If someone was messing with their stuff, trying to torpedo their cases, you would hear a human cry from them and you havent. And hell be gone soon. And did you get the sense this tactic of saying i understand its very important and snarky. I think you can say disrespectful. How are people coached generally . If you know youre going it before congress or half that panel is going to be tough on you, what are you told to do . Half is an tag nisic and half is friendly. And its fairly typical. People handle it in different ways. Ive never seen anyone handle it like that. You have to treat every member with a degree of civility and kindness and dignity. Hes not representing matt whit canker. He didnt do a particularly good job. Hes representing the United States department of justice. Hes speaking on behalf of more than 100,000 men and women working 24 7 around the globe. They saw their leader behave like an infant and that is really deeply disheartening. And we know theres being a be a hearing for the person to replace him, barr. Given what you saw today, what would you counsel him to do differently . Bill barr doesnt need my advice. I may not share his views politically but i believe hes an institutionalest and that he understands the department of justice. And by the way bill barr had no trouble denying that Mueller Probe was a witch hunt, no did the director of the fbi or rod rosenstein. So that doesnt seem to be ea big flift most adults. Im shocked it was a lift from matt whit canker. But bill barr is going to be fine. For more on what weve learned from the hearing, im joined by contributor, host of the majority report and democratic strategist. Thank you for being here. It panned all around to be honest. Havent heard anything but people panning this performance, terriau, by mr. Whit canker. You a political strategist. Could you sense in that Performance Today any strategic idea or goal or was he just in a mood . Thank you so much for there question. I understand the question is very important to you. First all of he was putting on a show as you stated. A show both for trump and i think he was putting on a show efor himself. Remember this person used to be on tv. And so i think hes looking for a future back in that space and after this is all said and done. What i would say is people drawn to is theyre not just drawn to trump because they want to be apert of all the divisiveness. They want to hitch to his wagn to chart their own course in terms of media and growth. People said to me why are people on the the apprentice had issues. They wanted to sue him and now theyre supporters. I get this question, why would they support him snow because they want to be just like him. And i think that is reflected in his administration as well. And thats what he wants. He wants people who want to reflect themselves and be mini trumps. Kwhitkers job was obviously sketch, for at least reading of the. A conservative nonprofit with undisclosed funders, 1. 2 million of money that went in. If this was a perform nsz donald trump cant help him. I guess he could get him on fox news. At the end of the day, you can see the democratic panel. Theyre not going to let him undermine the Mueller Probe. I think there were two things. There was a sense the scrutiny he got on day one when he was appointed acting attorney general, we dont know what his intengszs were. Hes very hard to look at that guy and say he was the best candidate for the Attorney Generals Office. But he didnt do, at least in terms of what he said today. He did not set up any obstacles for the Mueller Investigation. One thing i took away from that is the scrutiny on him seemed to work. But the other this is a guy from the conservative movement. Im a little more cynical than other people who anticipate these type of folk to have respect for the institution. Hes going to go out theres a lot of that money slaugsing around out there. He set himself to be running any one off a number of conservative socalled think tanks or Movement Groups or independent expenditures. Fox news. Theres a Huge Industry out there that someone like him can walk in to right now if trump doesnt turn around and give him another job in the administration. You have a good point. So eif that was the goal, then he did it. It was yet another audition. Lets talk about the republicans for a moment. It seems no matter how far off the rails. Its universal the pan thofrg performance but republicans still seem to want to protect even him. Heres an exchange where republicans tried to stop democrats from questioning the qualifications for whitaker for the job. Its my understanding that before you moved to the department of justice you were the executive director for the ms. Chairman, i have a point off order. Mr. Chairman ms. Chairman, i have a point of order. I have a point of order make full use of the opportunity to call gentle lady must extend. My very point is outside the scope of an oversight investigative hearing of the department of justice. If you think of the donald Trump Presidency as a television show, rather than the presidency, everyone is performing for a purpose. What is the purpose for republicans at this point . Theyve just got a shellacking in the house. They can see the place wheres theyre losing support are precisely the places they would need to retain the white house. Senate seats are up. What is the point at this point of so jealously guarding mr. Whitaker . Theyve made the political calculation that in any way going against trump is more costly than actually speaking out and being and showing a degree integrity, even with the losses they took in 2018, they think that if they go against trump, the electoral results will be even worse. All these people youre talking about are there despite the fact they were suporb r portative of trump or because they were. The ones who were going to lose have lost. These people are there because theyre supporters support donald trump. And so that is the problem ultimately that republicans have long term is they cannot separate themselves fromden donald trump because ultimately theyre voting the vast majority of the Republican Party still supportive of donald trump. What happened today may look like a freak show to 50 60 of the country. But theres 30 to 40 who think this is our guy. Yep, looks great to them. 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Means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. Does this sound dismal . It isnt. Its the most wonderful life on earth. One of the many things that acting attorney general Matt Whitaker had to answer for today was his tennier for former attorney general jeff sessions. With trumps zero tolerance policy started under sessions. With that in mind, congresswoman lit into whitaker about whether the administration has a way of tracking these separated families. Before or after the zero tolerance policy was put into place and i call it the zooro humanity policy, did the u. S. Attorneys track when they were separating a legal guardian and parent from their child. Theres only onancer to this. Its gone through the courts. Did you track when you were prosecuting a parent or legal guardian when they were separated from a child i do not believe we were tracking that. You were not. That is the correct answer and when parents are prosecuted and sentenced, theyre in doj custody, correct . Correct. Their custody is transnoord u. S. Marshall so your attorneys are prosecuting them and your department was not tracking parents separated from their children. Do you know what kind of damage has done to children and families across this country e . Do you understand the magnitude of that . I understand that the policy of zero tolerance has the Justice Department started tracking parents and legal guardians who were separated from their children at the border . The time of the gentle lady is expired. The gentleman may answer. I appreciate your passion for this issue and i know youve been involved in the front lines. This is about the childrens future, mr. Whitaker. Democrat from washington state. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Just watching that exchange between yourself and acting attorney general whitaker, theres an incredible contrast between how impassioned you are talking about children who may never see their parents again and a dismissiveness, just the way that he was looking away. Did you and his answer about i know this is important to you. Did you feel condescended to . Oh, absolutely and it started from the minute he walked in the hearing. He was arrogant, dismissive, disrespectful and when it came to this, i dont can think he knew what to do. Earlier i had said do you know about family separation, he said it didnt happen. I said there was a memo. And he said no, that didnt happen and i said there were four pinocchios to that statement that the Washington Post afforded to this and by the time we got to the end, this is such a compelling issue. Republicans and democrats agree that this was a heinous crime that has been committed against thousands of children. And i think he really didnt can know what to do and so he tried to be dismissive and say i respect your passion which is a way of saying youre getting kind of emotional about this. And i had to make it clear this is about the future of the children are. And i will say i am so proud i passion about this because anybody should be thinking about not only the children who never get to see their parents ever again but the children separated for months and some of them i watched them come together with their parnlts and i heard the parents say the kids didnt want to go back because they thought they had been abandoned. If we all dont have real passion, commitment, to figuring out what happened and making reparations, the u. S. Government should make reparations for what we have done to these families. And speaking of the idea of how long this is actually going on. The great producers found sound from march of 2017. This is john kelly, who at the time was secretary of Homeland Securit