2016 ELECTION/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Democrats on Friday [2-8-19] previewed how they plan to use their newly minted House majority to investigate the Trump administration as they grilled acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe — and even fired off a subpoena threat. During a highly contentious hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Whitaker testified that he never interfered with Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. But he declined to discuss certain conversations he has had about the probe with President Donald Trump…The DOJ chief stood his ground, insisting he would not ‘talk about my private conversations with the president of the United States’ — citing the possibility that the president would invoke executive privilege to shield the contents of those discussions. But Whitaker was at times inconsistent in his willingness to answer questions about his discussions with Trump and his supervision of the Mueller probe, drawing Democrats’ ire and prompting Nadler to demand that he return to the committee for an under-oath deposition.”
–Andrew Desiderio and Darren Samuelsohn, “Whitaker says he never interfered in Mueller probe,” Politico, February 8, 2019 5:59 pm