Chris Wallace: ‘Rich’ for GOP to rail against Dem oversight after repeated Obama-era investigations

Fox News host Chris Wallace said it is “rich” that Republicans are “outraged” that Democrats are grilling Matthew Whitaker, President Trump’s acting attorney general.

Speaking during a pause in the at-times contentious hearings, Wallace said while there does not appear to be a “smoking gun” to indicate Trump is interfering in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Democrats have the right to press Whitaker.

{mosads}“On the other hand, I have to say, I do find it kind of rich that Republicans are so outraged that there would be this kind of a hearing of the other party’s president and administration,” Wallace said. “You know, it’s not like Republicans sat on their hands when Barack Obama was president. They investigated Benghazi, they investigated ‘Fast and Furious,’ they investigated the IRS.”

He added that those investigations conducted by Republicans when former President Obama held office “were all legitimate issues to investigate.”

Wallace then took a page out of Obama’s book, reiterating his famous line, “elections have consequences.” 

“When Republicans have oversight of a branch of Congress or a house of Congress and they’re investigating a Democratic president, they’re going to make life difficult for them,” he said. “And now the Democrats are in control of the House and have control of these committees. That’s just the way it works.”

Democrats took control of the House in last year’s November midterms and said immediately they would use their control of committees to investigate Trump and his nominees. 

Whitaker’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee marks one the first high-profile hearings in 2019. They are looking into whether Whitaker, whose office oversees the special counsel’s investigation, shared any information with Trump about Mueller’s probe, among other things.

Wallace noted Whitaker “made a mistake” when he said last month that Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is “close to being completed.”

He said Whitaker “would be wise, and I think he realizes that now, if he said nothing about the Mueller investigation in public.”