(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’s given Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker no instructions regarding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I didn’t speak to Matt Whitaker about it,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Friday for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I in France.

Whitaker, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff, replaced his boss on Wednesday after Trump forced Sessions to resign. The president never forgave Sessions for recusing himself from supervising Mueller’s probe, and Whitaker has taken over responsibility for the work from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein even though he has publicly criticized the investigation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning

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