AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
- Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker reportedly counseled top DOJ officials on how to counter President Donald Trump’s demands for investigations into his political adversaries, while at the same time advising the White House on how it could force the DOJ to investigate those same claims.
- In conversations with Trump, Whitaker is said to have cast himself as a staunch loyalist and promised he would “extract as much as he could from the Justice Department on the president’s behalf.”
- Whitaker is now in charge of the Russia investigation and the special counsel Robert Mueller, and Friday’s news is just the latest in a series of revelations that throw Whitaker’s independence from the White House into question.
In May, Matthew Whitaker, then the chief of staff to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was reportedly counseling top DOJ officials on how to counter President Donald Trump’s fervent demands to investigate the baseless claim that the FBI “infiltrated or surveilled” his 2016 presidential campaign.
At the same time, Whitaker was advising the White House on how to force the DOJ to investigate those very same claims.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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See Also:
- Jeff Sessions says he doesn’t regret recusing himself, is confident Mueller probe conducted ‘appropriately and with justification’
- McConnell rejects vote on bill to protect Mueller, says special counsel is ‘not under threat’
- Robert Mueller has reportedly begun drafting his final report in the Russia probe
