Mar 05, 2019 · Feb. 20, 201904:44. Whitaker previously served as former Attorney General Jeff Session’s chief of staff. He was accused by some within the Justice Department of being more loyal to the White ...
Jul 24, 2020 · When President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions immediately after the 2018 elections, he appointed Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’s chief of staff, to take his place. The Department of Justice failed to release Whitaker’s financial disclosure reports until nearly two weeks after his November 7 appointment — after American Oversight called for the …
Nov 14, 2018 · Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, had been Sessions' chief of staff. He will be allowed to serve as acting attorney general for at …
Jeffrey A. RosenPreceded byWilliam BarrSucceeded byMonty Wilkinson (acting)38th United States Deputy Attorney GeneralIn office May 22, 2019 – December 23, 202027 more rows
Marci WhitakerMatthew Whitaker / Spouse
Jeff SessionsPresidentDonald TrumpDeputyDana Boente (acting) Rod RosensteinPreceded byLoretta LynchSucceeded byWilliam Barr33 more rows
After leaving the Justice Department, Whitaker became a guest on news and analysis shows, and was affiliated with the law firm of Graves Garrett. In August 2019, he became a managing director at Axiom Strategies and Clout Public Affairs.
But Whitaker was an open critic of the Russia investigation before he joined the government under Sessions, and he also has ties to at least one person who has been caught up in it — former Trump campaign official Sam Clovis.
The vacancy reform law suggests that Whitaker may remain in the position for 210 days.
The Justice Department's legal counsel office said it identified at least 160 officials before 1860 who weren't confirmed by the Senate but who served as "principal officer" on a temporary basis.
Democrats also say they want to know more about Whitaker's role in what the Federal Trade Commission called a business "scam" last year; a number of House Democrats said Wednesday that they want more information about what Whitaker did for the company involved.
Critics call it "unconstitutional" because he wasn't confirmed by the Senate. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's appointment was legal, a Justice Department memo concluded on Wednesday. Critics call it "unconstitutional" because he wasn't confirmed by the Senate.
Whitaker was Sessions' chief of staff. And although the Justice Department has a Senate-confirmed No. 2 leader in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the law "does not displace the president's authority to use the Vacancies Reform Act as an alternative," the memo says.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's temporary appointment was legal, the Justice Department said in a memo on Wednesday — but it did not address whether he must recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
Barr’s long career in public life led some justice department veterans to welcome his nomination as attorney general in late 2018, given concerns about who else Trump might pick.
Barr’s intervention in the Stone case came after he orchestrated a replacement of the head of the prosecutor’s office in Washington, Jessie Liu, under murky circumstances. Liu had been tapped for a Treasury post and was replaced in the US attorney’s office by Timothy Shea, a Barr loyalist. Then, this week, Trump withdrew Liu’s nomination – ...
Those developments included Barr’s intervention in a case involving Trump’s friend Roger Stone, prompting the withdrawal of four career prosecutors; the resignation from government of a prominent former US attorney previously sidelined by Barr; and the issuance of a rare public warning by a federal judge about the independence of the courts.
Kinkopf was among those who warned that Barr’s view of executive power was dangerously expansive, telling the Guardian it “comes very close to putting the president above the law”. But there was room to believe at the time that Barr’s theories would remain theories, Kinkopf says now.
William Barr, 69 and a veteran of 40 years in Washington, was confirmed one year ago as attorney general, a position with broad influence over the administration of justice and broad sway over public faith placed in it.
Barr has not v indicated his supporters, Kinkopf said. “His theory is that the constitution allows for this, but good-faith service in the office of president and the office of attorney general maintains the credibility and the apolitical nature of law enforcement.