Tag: Matt Whitaker

Matthew Whitaker: ‘Deeply Concerning’ That CNN Was at Roger Stone Raid

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by Chuck Ross   Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday that he found it “deeply concerning” that a CNN crew was present at the FBI raid of Roger Stone’s home in late January. “It was deeply concerning to me as to how CNN found out about that,” Whitaker told the House Judiciary Committee during a Justice Department oversight hearing. Whitaker says he was concerned that a CNN crew was camping out outside Roger Stone's house when he was arrested pic.twitter.com/V3RSmSuzkx — Yahoo News (@YahooNews) February 8, 2019 Stone was indicted under seal on Jan. 24 in the special counsel’s investigation and arrested at his home in Florida the next day. A CNN camera crew filmed as 29 FBI agents stormed Stone’s house around 6 a.m. local time. Stone has alleged that CNN was tipped off to his indictment and arrest, while the network has denied the claim. CNN says it sent reporters to Stone’s home after its Washington-based journalists noticed a flurry of activity at the federal courthouse on the day Stone was indicted. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham asked for an FBI briefing on the raid Tuesday. Graham asked whether CNN had advance knowledge of the raid…

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Three Senate Judiciary Democrats Sue Over Whitaker Appointment

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by Molly Prince   Three Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit Monday to block acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker from the position, asking a judge to deem it unconstitutional. Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sued both Whitaker and President Donald Trump, alleging that Trump’s appointment of Whitaker as acting attorney general is unconstitutional since the Senate has been deprived of its constitutional obligation to vote for or against principal federal officers. Trump appointed Whitaker to temporarily take over the role of attorney general after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to resign from the position. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that Trump violated the Appointment Clause by disregarding the Senate’s power of Advice and Consent, which was “adopted by our nation’s Founders as an important check on the power of the President.” “Recognizing that giving the President the ‘sole disposition of offices’ would result in a Cabinet governed much more by his private inclinations and interests’ than by the public good,” the suit reads. “It could result in the appointment of Officers who had ‘no other merit than that of ……

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Commentary: Double Standards Galore in the Attorney General Fracas

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by John C. Eastman   So let me get this straight. In his November 8 New York Times op-ed (“Trump’s Appointment of the Acting Attorney General Is Unconstitutional,” co-authored be George Conway), Neal Katyal writes that President Trump’s designation of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general is unconstitutional because the office of attorney general is a “principal office,” which can only be filled by someone who has been confirmed by the Senate. That would be the same Neal Katyal who served as acting solicitor general, also a Senate-confirmed position. And the same Neal Katyal whose boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, had served as acting attorney general at the end of the Clinton Administration and in the early days of the George W. Bush Administration. And the same Neal Katyal who served in an administration that closed out with another acting attorney general, Sally Yates, who acted like an embedded enemy within the Trump Administration until she was finally fired by the president for refusing to defend the president’s travel ban executive order—she claimed that there was no plausible defense for it, even though the policy was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court. The double standard is so palpable as to…

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As Federal Prosecutor Acting AG Whitaker Went After Both Democrats and Republicans

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by Fred Lucas   Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker went after Democratic and Republican politicians alike while serving as a federal prosecutor and as the head of an ethics watchdog group. Now at the center of a political firestorm in Washington, Whitaker returns Wednesday to Iowa—the state where he made his name in both politics and sports. Whitaker will deliver the opening remarks Wednesday at the Rural and Tribal Elder Justice Summit in Des Moines. The conference will focus on fighting and preventing elder abuse in rural and tribal communities. But on Tuesday, the state of Maryland sued in federal court, claiming Whitaker’s appointment as acting attorney general was illegal because he was not confirmed for the office by the Senate. He was elevated to the post last week after President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for whom Whitaker had served as chief of staff. As a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 2004 to 2009, Whitaker prosecuted some 2,500 criminal cases, including against H-1B visa fraud, government contractors defrauding taxpayers, and drug dealers. Whitaker first made a name for himself in Iowa years before, playing college football for the University of Iowa and competing in…

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US Justice Department Defends Appointment of Acting AG

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  The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday defended the legality of President Donald Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, which bypassed the usual line of succession at the agency. In a 20-page internal legal opinion, the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel said Trump could “depart from the succession order” and name Whitaker instead of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, then the second in command at Justice when the president last week ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The 49-year-old Whitaker had been serving as Sessions’ chief of staff. Whitaker’s appointment has proved controversial because he, unlike Sessions, is now overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign’s links to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe. Before becoming the country’s top law enforcement official, Whitaker disparaged the Mueller investigation and suggested that a replacement attorney general, such as he is now, could derail the probe by cutting off funding to it so that it “grinds almost to a halt.” Democratic opponents of Trump, and some Republicans, have expressed fears that Whitaker will try to undermine Mueller’s probe or even fire him before his investigation is completed. Sessions had removed…

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Democrats Escalate Push for Matt Whitaker’s Recusal from Mueller Probe

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by Chuck Ross   Top Democrats in the House and Senate continued Sunday to press for acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s recusal from the Mueller investigation over his remarks criticizing the probe. In a letter sent to the Department of Justice’s top ethics official, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and five leading committee Democrats asked whether Whitaker was advised to recuse himself from the investigation. “There are serious ethical considerations that require Mr. Whitaker’s immediate recusal from any involvement with the Special Counsel investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” reads the letter, which was sent to Assistant Attorney General Lee J. Lofthus. “Regrettably, Mr. Whitaker’s statements indicate a clear bias against the investigation that would cause a reasonable person to question his impartiality.” The Democrats pointed to remarks that Whitaker made in 2017 when he ran the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative non-profit group. Whitaker was hired as Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff, reportedly after President Donald Trump saw him on CNN criticizing the Mueller investigation. “The official supervising the Special Counsel investigation must be — in both fact and appearance — independent and impartial,” reads the letter, which…

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