Matthew Whitaker, the new acting attorney general, gave President Trump private advice last year on how the White House might be able to convince the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate possible corruption by Hillary Clinton, according to a report Friday.

Trump wanted the Justice Department to investigate what role Clinton played in approving the controversial “Uranium One” deal while she was secretary of state, and Whitaker, who served as chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions before being appointed this week to temporarily fill his former boss’s role, was “committed to extract as much as he could from the Justice Department on the president’s behalf,” Vox reported.