Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general, has been taking ethics advice on recusing himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. If he does recuse himself, it would likely infuriate President Donald Trump.
A statement by Kerri Kupec, spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said that Whitaker was "fully committed to following all appropriate processes and procedures at the Department of Justice, including consulting with senior ethics officials on his oversight responsibilities and matters that may warrant recusal."
Whitaker's predecessor, Jeff Sessions, recused himself after he took office at the beginning of 2017 from matters involving the presidential campaign, including any inquiry into charges that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, assumed oversight.
Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Kremlin and Trump's campaign is the focus of Mueller's investigation.
Sessions's recusal angered President Trump, who never ceased to harp on it. Sessions was asked to resign, and did so, the day after the midterms. Whitaker, who was Sessions's chief of staff, was tapped to take the role temporarily.
The investigation has notched up a number of indictments of and guilty pleas from several people surrounding Trump, including his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and personal attorney Michael Cohen. Trump dismissed the Mueller probe as a politically motivated "witch hunt."
Whitaker had previously commented about Mueller's investigation that his critics argue are firm grounds for recusal from oversight.
Whitaker said in a 2017 op-ed for CNN that the special counsel should not broaden his inquiries to investigate Trump's family finances lest it become "a mere witch hunt," and urged Rosenstein to limit the probe.
"If [Mueller] were to continue to investigate the financial relationships without a broadened scope in his appointment, then this would raise serious concerns that the special counsel's investigation was a mere witch hunt," Whitaker wrote.
He later added: "It is time for Rosenstein…to order Mueller to limit the scope of his investigation to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel. If he doesn't, then Mueller's investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition."
And in an interview on CNN the same year, Whitaker said he could see a situation where an acting attorney general stifles the Mueller probe by reducing its budget "to so low that his investigations grind almost to a halt," Bloomberg reported.
Moreover, Whitaker defended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and Russian lobbyists with Kremlin ties during a CNN panel discussion. The Trump campaign had earlier been told that they would be given damaging information on Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
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Shane Croucher is a Senior Editor based in London, UK. He oversees the My Turn team. He has previously overseen ... Read more
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