Tag: Trump Justice Department

Why Trump’s Call for ‘Overwhelming Bipartisan’ Vote for Barr Seems Unlikely

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., flanked by other Senate Democrats, at a news conference in March. The two senators have voiced concerns about President Trump’s pick, William Barr, to make his second run as attorney general. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call

Donald Trump and acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday gave a full-throated endorsement to the president’s pick to fill the post, former Attorney General William Barr,  but Democratic senators and civil rights advocates are sounding alarms.

William Barr “deserves” from the Senate “overwhelming bipartisan support,” Trump said while addressing a law enforcement conference in Kansas City. “There’s no one more capable or qualified for this position,” he claimed.

Whitaker called the George H.W. Bush-era AG a “highly qualified” nominee-in-waiting to possibly return to the post for a second time. He said Barr’s confirmation would mark a “continuation of this law-and-order presidency.”

View the complete December 7 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Trump picks William Barr as next attorney general

President Trump on Friday said he would nominate former Attorney General William Barr to once again helm the Justice Department.

The selection of Barr, who served as the nation’s top law enforcement official under President George H.W. Bush, could have implications for special counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation. Barr has recently criticized parts of the probe and defended Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as FBI director.

Speaking to reporters at the White House before leaving to speak to a police officers’ convention in Kansas City, Trump lauded Barr as a “highly respected lawyer” and a “brilliant man.”

View the complete December 7 article by Jordan Fabian and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump’s acting attorney general once referred to the president’s behavior as ‘a little dangerous’ and ‘a little outlandish’

In past interviews, acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker has criticized President Trump for not releasing his tax returns and for playing with the truth. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

A review of hundreds of public comments by acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker shows that while he has primarily functioned as a defender of President Trump, he has also criticized the president on numerous occasions, sometimes harshly, while working as a commentator on radio and television.

Whitaker has repeatedly suggested that Trump plays with the truth. He has said Trump should release his tax returns and was “self-serving” in the way he fired FBI Director James B. Comey. Whitaker said during the run-up to the 2016 election that neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton was a very good option for the presidency. “I mean, both these candidates are unlikable,” he said.

The critique of the president by Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney who rose to prominence over the past four years as the head of a conservative nonprofit group, has often come in unguarded moments, and sometimes late into on-air discussions. “Sometimes I wonder if anybody has the president’s ear or if he just kind of watches news accounts and responds to, which is a little dangerous,” Whitaker said in June 2017 on a radio show.

View the complete November 30 article by Aaron C. Dvis and Ilana Marcus on The Washington Post website here.

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.

As U.S. attorney, Whitaker sought longer-than-usual drug sentences

Raeanna Woody, shown at her home in Cheyenne, Wyo., was granted clemency under President Barack Obama. Credit: Nick Cote, The Washington Post

Raeanna Woody’s crimes hardly seemed like they would add up to a life sentence in prison. She had two nonviolent drug convictions, for possessing marijuana and delivering 12 grams of methamphetamine. But when she was arrested in a third drug case, she said, the office of U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Whitaker decided to make an example of her.

Under Whitaker, who is now acting attorney general, Woody was given a choice: spend the rest of her life in jail, or accept a plea bargain sentence of 21 to 27 years, according to court records. She took the deal.

Judge Robert W. Pratt in the Southern District of Iowa later accused federal prosecutors of having “misused” their authority in Woody’s nonviolent case. He urged President Barack Obama to commute her sentence — and Obama did shorten her term, after she had served 11 years.

View the complete November 21 article by Michael Kranish on The Washington Post website here.

Conservative nonprofit with obscure roots and undisclosed funders paid Matthew Whitaker $1.2 million

Acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker worked for a charity called the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust for three years, starting in 2014. Credit: Yuri Gripas, Reuters

In the three years after he arrived in Washington in 2014, Matthew G. Whitaker received more than $1.2 million as the leader of a charity that reported having no other employees, some of the best pay of his career.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust described itself as a new watchdog nonprofit dedicated to exposing unethical conduct by public officials. For Whitaker, it became a lucrative steppingstone in a swift rise from a modest law practice in Iowa to the nation’s top law enforcement job. As FACT’s president, he regularly appeared on radio and television, often to skewer liberals.

But FACT’s origins and the source of funding used to pay Whitaker — now the acting attorney general — remain obscured. An examination of state and federal records, and interviews with those involved, show that the group is part of a national network of nonprofits that often work in concert to amplify conservative messages.

View the complete November 20 article by Robert O’Harrow, Jr., Shawn Boburg and Aaron C. Davis on The Washington Post website here.

Trump wanted to order Justice Department to prosecute James Comey, Hillary Clinton

Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

Donald McGahn, then the White House counsel, rejected the president’s request, according to two people familiar with the conversation in the spring.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Donald McGahn, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when McGahn left the White House and Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.

View the complete November 21 article by Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman with The New York Times on The StarTribune website here.

Conservative Lawyers Say Trump Has Undermined the Rule of Law

President Trump last week in Washington. Some members of the Federalist Society are urging their fellow conservatives to speak up about what they say are the Trump administration’s betrayals of bedrock legal norms.Credit: Sarah Silbiger, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The annual convention of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, has long been a glittering and bustling affair. In the Trump era, though, the group has become more powerful than ever, supplying intellectual energy and judicial candidates to an assertive administration eager to reshape the legal landscape.

But as the group prepares to gather on Thursday for the start of this year’s convention, more than a dozen prominent conservative lawyers have joined together to sound a note of caution. They are urging their fellow conservatives to speak up about what they say are the Trump administration’s betrayals of bedrock legal norms.

“Conservative lawyers are not doing enough to protect constitutional principles that are being undermined by the statements and actions of this president,” said John B. Bellinger III, a top State Department and White House lawyer under President George W. Bush.

View the complete November 14 article by Adam Liptak on The New York Times website here.

The legal fight over Matthew Whitaker’s appointment, explained

This post has been updated.

It may wind up being the most consequential legal question in Robert S. Mueller III’s entire Russia investigation, and it has nothing to do with Mueller.

President Trump’s acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, is facing a legal fight to keep his job. After several legal experts raised constitutional objections to it, the state of Maryland has sought an injunction to declare Whitaker’s appointment illegal and to recognize Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein as the rightful acting attorney general. The Justice Department has now responded.

Whitaker’s commentary on the Mueller probe is clearly sympathetic to Trump — to the extent of musing about defunding Mueller and even suggesting the Trump Tower meeting was business-as-usual. If he continues as acting attorney general, he could rule on consequential issues including potential indictments of Trump allies, up to and including the president’s son. He could reject an attempt to subpoena the president.

View the complete November 14 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.