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Rep. Trey Gowdy Rips Chuck Schumer For Sessions/Whitaker Comments

Fox News 11/7/2018

Mike Brest Reporter
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South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy fired back at Senator Chuck Schumer on “Special Report With Bret Baier” for his comments about President Donald Trump’s decision to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday.

Trump requested and accepted Sessions’ resignation on Tuesday. The president publicly announced the decision on Twitter.

“We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States,” he tweeted. “He will serve our Country well. We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.”

WATCH:

The segment began with Baier airing a clip of Schumer expressing concern that Whitaker would limit the scope of the Mueller investigation.

“Every prosecutor has jurisdictional boundaries. I don’t know a single prosecutor that does not. Mueller’s jurisdictional boundaries were set by Rod Rosenstein in the memo you have seen and they were altered, amended in the memo that we have not seen. But there has never been a prosecutor that just had unfettered power to go investigate whatever the heck he or she wanted to do,” Gowdy stated in response to Schumer.

WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 29: Department of Justice Chief of Staff Matt Whitaker (R) participates in a round table event with the Joint Interagency Task Force – South (JIATF-S) foreign liaison officers at the Department of Justice Kennedy building August 29, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“If you’re a state prosecutor you can’t investigate federal crimes. If you’re in New York, you can’t investigate things in Idaho. So the notion that we are going to create a special counsel that has no boss, no jurisdictional strictures at all is just typical Chuck Schumer and I think it’s why so few people take them seriously,” he continued. (RELATED: Gowdy Questions Why Kavanaugh Is Guilty Until Proven Innocent)

Baier responded, “What about the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein in his role here? One would’ve assumed that the deputy, that’s why he’s the deputy if the attorney general is not there, he would step in as acting.”

Gowdy added, “These are interesting times that we are in. Rod Rosenstein, I was ready to question him, I had 37 pages worth of questions for him, Bret, a couple weeks ago. Of course he is alleged to have wanted to vote the 25th Amendment and question the president’s fitness for office, so I’m not sure that would’ve been the right pick.”

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