President Trump claimed Friday that he had not discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation with Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
“I didn’t speak to Matt Whitaker about it,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.”
Whitaker served as the chief of staff to now-fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and was often with him during meetings at the White House at which Trump was present.
In September, the New York Times reported that White House chief of staff John Kelly considered Whitaker as “as the West Wing’s ‘eyes and ears’ in a department the president has long considered at war with him.”
“Well, I never talk about that, but I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker. But I never talk about conversations that I had,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News in October.
Whitaker was appointed by Trump on Wednesday after Sessions resigned, at the request of Kelly.
Since then, Whitaker has come under increased scrutiny because of his previous criticisms of Mueller’s investigation.
As attorney general, Whitaker now takes the reigns of oversight of Mueller.
Whitaker, a Trump ally, has accused Mueller of “going too far” and also called his prosecutors a “lynch mob.”
Of Whitaker, Trump added Friday morning: “He was always extremely highly thought of […] but I didn’t know Matt Whitaker. He was very very highly thought of and still is highly thought of, but this only comes up because anybody that works for me, they do a number on him.”
The Washington Post reported this week that Whitaker met with the president more than a dozen times in the Oval Office.
