1. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker walks in for news conference at the Deparment of Justice
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Matthew Whitaker, Acting Attorney General:
"Well I mean fundamentally the Mueller investigation has a very defined scope and you know it so, anything outside of that scope would have to either be the scope would have to be enhanced to bring additional matters to be investigated by the Mueller investigation. But obviously if it's not given to that investigation by increasing the scope of the investigation, it would be retained by the Department of Justice. You know we have, we take very seriously lying to Congress. And if there are referrals made by by the appropriate committees, as his ordinary course for matters like this then we would investigate that as we would anything else."
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3. SOUNDBITE (English) Matthew Whitaker, Acting Attorney General:
"You know I've been fully briefed on the investigation and you know I look forward to Director Mueller delivering the final report. And I really am not going to talk about open an ongoing investigation otherwise. But you know sort of the statements that I made were as a private citizen only with publicly available information. And you know I am I'm comfortable that the decisions that were made are going to be reviewed either through the various means we have. But right now you know the investigation is I think close to being completed and I hope that we can get the report from Director Mueller soon as we as possible."
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker says the special counsel's Russia investigation is "close to being completed."
Whitaker made the comment Monday during an unrelated news conference at the Justice Department in Washington.
He says he's been "fully briefed" on the special counsel's investigation. He took over control overseeing the probe after Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned at the president's request in November.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to sway the 2016 presidential election. Whitaker says he hopes to receive Mueller's report as soon as possible.
President Donald Trump has nominated William Barr to serve as the next attorney general. His confirmation hearing was held earlier this month and he's awaiting a confirmation vote in the Senate.
