Top Congressional Democrats are keeping the pressure on Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, most recently by asking the Justice Department if any top ethics officials have advised him to recuse himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The lawmakers want to know “immediately” from Lee Lofthus, the assistant attorney general for administration at the Justice Department, if he has advised Whitaker to rescue himself. Lofthus is also the department’s chief ethics officer.
Citing Whitaker’s public criticism of the special counsel investigation, the Democrats say in a letter to Lofthus that he has “troubling conflicts of interest,” which include his relationship with Sam Clovis, who supervised George Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos worked on the Trump campaign in 2016, and pleaded guilty in October as part of Mueller’s investigation.
“The official supervising the special counsel investigation must be — in both fact and appearance — independent and impartial. Regrettably, Mr. Whitaker’s statements indicate a clear bias against the investigation that would cause a reasonable person to question his impartiality,” the Democrats wrote in the Sunday letter. “Allowing a vocal opponent of the investigation to oversee it will severely undermine public confidence in the Justice Department’s work on this critically important matter.”
The letter is signed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, and Ranking Oversight Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings.
Pelosi is making a bid for House speaker, while Nadler, Schiff, and Cummings are in line to chair their respective committees.
Due to both Whitaker’s 2017 remarks and his relationship with Clovis — who is a grand jury witness in Mueller’s investigation — as well as what the lawmakers say are “other entanglements,” the Democratic lawmakers want to know if Lofthus or any other ethics officials at the Justice Department has advised Whitaker to recuse himself, as well as “the basis for that recommendation.”
“We also request that you provide us all ethics guidance the department has provided to Mr. Whitaker to date,” they wrote.
Whitaker was appointed acting attorney general on Wednesday after the forced resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Because Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation in March 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took control of oversight, and appointed Mueller in May 2017.
With Sessions out, Whitaker — Sessions’ former chief of staff — took over control of Mueller’s investigation, and ignited worries about what he would do, due to both his close relationship to the White House and because of his prior comments about the special counsel.
On June 9, 2017, Whitaker stated on a radio show: “There is no criminal obstruction of justice charge to be had here. The evidence is weak. No reasonable prosecutor would bring a case.”
A month later in July, Whitaker stated that he “could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and that attorney general doesn’t fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt.”
Whitaker has also called the special counsel investigation “a mere witch hunt” and published an op-ed titled “Mueller’s investigation of Trump is going too far,” in which he argued that Rosenstein should place limits on the scope of the investigation.
On Sunday, House Democrats made it clear that if Whitaker doesn’t recuse himself from Mueller’s investigation, he will be brought in for a grilling when Democrats take control of the House majority in January.
“Our very first witness after Jan. 3, we will subpoena — or we will summon, not necessarily subpoena — Mr. Whitaker,” Nadler, D-N.Y., said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “He’s totally unqualified.”
Nadler added: “And his only qualification seems to be that he wants to be — that the president wants him to be the hatchet man to destroy the Mueller investigation.”
Schiff, D-Calif., said that “any role that [Whitaker] plays will be exposed to the public.”
“If he has any involvement whatsoever in this Russia probe, we are going to find out whether he made commitments to the president about the probe, whether he is serving as a back channel to the president or his lawyers about the probe, whether he’s doing anything to interfere with the probe,” Schiff told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
But the White Hose is standing by Whitaker.
Counselor to President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, said the statements don’t disqualify Whitaker because he was a “private citizen” when he made them.
Whitaker has also worked as a lawyer in private practice, as well as serving as a U.S. attorney in Iowa during the George W. Bush administration. He twice ran for office in Iowa as a Republican, before joining the Justice Department in 2017.
“If you’re talking about Matt Whitaker’s statements as a private citizen a year and a half ago when the Mueller investigation first started, what he has said on cable TV, I don’t think that disqualifies somebody from being the chief law enforcement officer at the Department of Justice, which is an executive function,” Conway told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
Conway added that it would be “a mistake to try to shut down the Mueller investigation” the way Whitaker suggested in the past.
A top White House ally said that he is “confident” Mueller can go forward as he wants without interference.
“I am confident the Mueller investigation will be allowed to come to a good, solid conclusion, that there’ll be no political influence put on Mr. Mueller by Mr. Whitaker to do anything other than Mr. Mueller’s job,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
When asked by text message on Friday if Trump will use Whitaker to squeeze Mueller or if it’s a “freak out over nothing,” a source familiar with Trump’s thinking told the Washington Examiner, “the latter.”
