Fearing tough questioning from House Democrats, President Donald Trump’s Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has come out with a bizarre strategy to sabotage his own public testimony: He told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday afternoon that he would not appear at Friday’s closely-watched oversight hearing unless he receives a written assurance he won’t be served with a subpoena.
The threat for Whitaker not to testify comes after the House Judiciary Committee voted earlier Thursday to authorize a subpoena for Whitaker ahead of his Friday testimony — which House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said he would use only if Whitaker did not appear or would not answer the committee’s questions, including about conversations with the White House involving special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
But Whitaker is facing a no-win situation. He can show up and testify honestly in front of the television cameras for the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, alienating Donald Trump in the process. Or he can show up and commit perjury while trying to protect Trump, which will get him sent prison. Or he can not show up, which will put him in contempt of Congress, which will land him behind bars. Now something about Whitaker is leaking, and we’re not talking about sweat.
It’s now clear that Whitaker is scared to death about tomorrow’s testimony. He is the kind of guy who can’t get through a press conference about Chinese cellphones without sweating gallons and blurting out a confession to obstruction of justice. He knows he’s about to really be overmatched and is now floating feeble nonsense to try to get out of it.
Apparently, Matt Whitaker doesn’t know what contempt of Congress is. If he blows off the subpoena and doesn’t show, the Democrats can have him arrested tomorrow.
Andrew Napolitano said President Donald Trump has “every right” to choose who he wants to head up the Department of Justice. But according to Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, Matt Whitaker, the president’s choice to be acting AG, is “not legally qualified” to serve in the position.
Napolitano appeared on Fox & Friends Thursday to talk about how Trump picked Whitaker to serve as acting AG after Jeff Sessions resigned at his request. Napolitano said Whitaker is “absolutely” professionally qualified for the job, but that he isn’t “legally qualified” for the job.
“There’s only three ways a person can become acting attorney general,” Napolitano said. He explained: 1. If you are the deputy attorney general, a position currently held by Rod Rosenstein; 2. If you work in the DOJ and have a job that requires Senate confirmation. 3. If there’s a recess appointment.
The Department of Justice has been mired in controversy this week, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out of his position by President Donald Trump, and his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, appointed as acting AG.
Not only do multiple legal and constitutional scholars argue that Whitaker's appointment to acting AG is unconstitutional because he was not confirmed to his current position by the US Senate, but commentators and state attorneys general have accused him of being unfit for the position.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Whitaker did not plan to recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference and possible crimes on the part of the 2016 Trump campaign-and would block Mueller from subpoenaing the President.
Whitaker has frequently undermined the legitimacy and validity of the Mueller probe in the media, echoing Trump's own talking points that the probe is a "witch hunt" investigating non-existent impropriety by the Trump campaign.
Whitaker served was appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa at the age of 39, and served in that role from 2004 to 2009.
After his tenure as a US Attorney, Whitaker became a regular conservative commentator on political and legal issues for outlets like USA Today and the Washington Examiner. In 2014, he unsuccessfully in Iowa's Republican primary for U.S. Senate. He was appointed as Sessions' chief of staff in September 2017.
Whitaker was not a widely-known figure before last week, but since his appointment as acting AG, some of his more controversial actions and statements have since resurfaced. He once said he believed federal judges should be Christians, has repeatedly disparaged the Mueller probe, and served on the board of a marketing firm that scammed its customers out of $26 million and was shut down by the FTC.
Here's a full timeline of Whitaker's controversial political past:
U.S. Attorney Matthew Whitaker speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006, in Des Moines, Iowa. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
"This is lunacy. For any lawyer — certainly for one now at the helm of the Justice Department — to disagree with Marbury is like a physicist denouncing the laws of gravity," wrote Washington Post editorial page editor Ruth Marcus of Whitaker's comments.
"Decided in 1803, at the dawn of the new republic, Marbury v. Madison is the foundational case of American constitutional law," Marcus continued.
"It represents Chief Justice John Marshall's declaration that the Supreme Court possesses the ultimate power to interpret the Constitution and determine the legitimacy of acts of Congress."
Source:Washington Post
Southern District of Iowa United States Attorney Matthew Whitaker, left, speaks during a news conference, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009, AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
"What I know is that as long as they have that worldview, that they'll be a good judge. And if they have a secular worldview, that 'this is all we have here on Earth', then I'm going to be very concerned about how they judge."
In a statement to Business Insider, the Freedom From Religion Foundation accused Whitaker of being an "extreme Christian nationalist."
"What would a biblical view of justice look like? Capital punishment for such non-crimes as worshipping gods other than the Judeo-Christian god, blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, disobeying a parent, a woman who isn't a virgin on her wedding night, or witchcraft," they added.
"Whitaker has joked that he prefers New Testament justice to 'Levitical' justice, but has apparently forgotten that Jesus supposedly said, in the Beatitudes no less, that he came to fulfill the law of the prophets, not to abolish it," they added.
AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
"As a principle, it has been turned down by the courts and our federal government has not recognized it," Whitaker said.
"Now we need to remember that the states set up the federal government and not vice versa. And so the question is, do we have the political courage in the state of Iowa or some other state to nullify Obamacare and pay the consequences for that?"
Source:CNN
"There was no collusion with the Republicans and the Trump campaign…There is not a single piece of evidence that demonstrates that the Trump campaign had any illegal or even improper relationships with Russians," he said in a 2017 talk show interview.
So far, the Mueller probe has indicted 32 people and struck plea agreements with four former Trump campaign advisors who pleaded guilty to lying about their contacts with Russians.
Source: Mother Jones
In that same interview, Whitaker said that Trump should have been more forceful in encouraging former FBI director James Comey to shut down his investigation into former Trump campaign advisor Michael Flynn, who ended up pleading guilty and became a cooperating witness in the Mueller probe.
"This is power that is completely vested in the president…If he wanted to he could have told Jim [Comey] to stop investigating former [Defense Intelligence Agency] director Flynn. And he didn't…I'm sure he made his preference known. Quite frankly, he's president of the United States. He can do that," Whitaker said.
Source:Mother Jones
my2cents 