President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied a New York Times report that he called acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker and asked him if it would be possible to put an ally in charge of an investigation into alleged hush money payments. "No, not at all, I don’t know who gave you that," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the Times report. On the 11th hour with Brian Williams, NYTimes reporter Michael S. Schmidt explained the significance of the reporting: One of the over-arching themes of our piece is that this type of behavior that the president has done, his efforts to control the investigation have not stopped, they haven't abated... he's tried in different ways to take control of it... and he doesn't seem to have learned a lot of lessons along the way... The other thing that runs through all this is loyalty. The president's obsession with the person overseeing the investigation being loyal to him. Starts with James Comey... with his one-on-one dinner at the White House... It's the same issue with Whitaker in trying to have someone loyal to him overseeing the investigation in New York City. 2020 update: Sen. Bernie Sanders officially announced his plans to run for president in 2020. His campaign, he says, is about “transforming the country,” and moving the “revolution forward” that he started during his unsuccessful 2016 campaign. In a changed political climate in a growing 2020 Democratic presidential field, is his voice as unique as it once was? Sensitive information: Whistleblowers from within President Donald Trump's National Security Council have told a congressional committee that efforts by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may have violated the law, and investigators fear the president is still considering it. |