Tag: Trump Attorney General

Whitaker made $1.2 million from conservative nonprofit

Newly released financial disclosures also show that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker made $15,000 during a three-month stint as a paid CNN commentator in 2017. Credit: Nicholas Kamm, AFP, Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to run the Justice Department, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, appears to have made more than $1.2 million heading a conservative nonprofit organization before joining the department last year.

As executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, or FACT, Whitaker made $502,000 in salary during the first nine months of 2017 before joining the Justice Department in September of that year as Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff, according to a financial disclosure form released Tuesday.

Whitaker took in $402,000 in salary from FACT in 2016, according to the group’s tax filings. The remainder of his compensation came from previous years with the group, where he started in 2014.

View the complete November 20 article on the Politico.com website here.

Whitaker’s post provides ample tools to disrupt Mueller probe

Matthew Whitaker doesn’t have to fire Robert Mueller to throw a wrench in the special counsel’s investigation.

Much of the focus on President Trump’s appointment of Whitaker to temporarily replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been on the possibility of Whitaker removing Mueller, a move that would undoubtedly spark public outrage and trigger full-scale investigations by Democrats, who are poised to take control of the House in January.

But federal regulations offer Whitaker, now acting attorney general, broad authority with respect to the special counsel that extends beyond the ability to remove Mueller, giving him the ability to curtail the probe in ways that would not necessarily become public knowledge until after the Russia investigation is over.

View the complete November 23 article by Morgan Chalifant on The Hill website here.

Jeff Sessions reportedly orders review of debunked Hillary Clinton claims, violating recusal vow

The following article by Josh Israel was posted on the ThinkProgress website December 21, 2017:

Not exactly ‘fair and impartial administration of justice.’

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions

For weeks, critics of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Trump administration have pushed a widely debunked conspiracy theory that she sold 20 percent of America’s uranium to Russia in exchange for a large donation to the Clinton Foundation.

On Thursday, NBC News reported that, on orders from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice’s prosecutors “have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now-dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton.” Continue reading “Jeff Sessions reportedly orders review of debunked Hillary Clinton claims, violating recusal vow”