POLITICO: I Was the Subject of a Political 'Witch Hunt.' Matt Whitaker Directed It.

[USALiberal]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/11/matthew-whitaker-iowa-witch-hunt-222408

Trump’s interim pick for AG was part of an investigation that was covered in partisan fingerprints

Matt McCoy is a state senator from Iowa's 21st District.

On the morning of April 7, 2006, two FBI agents knocked on my door. They informed me that I was being investigated about issues related to bribery and violation of the Hobbs Act. As I tried to recall what the Hobbs Act entailed (robbery and extortion, mostly), they prolonged their visit by pressing “play” on a tape recorder. I was shocked to hear a conversation I had conducted with my business colleague, Tom Vasquez.

That conversation detailed a dispute we had, regarding my consulting with Vasquez about a business that sold monitoring systems for senior citizens in Iowa. The federal government believed that in my demanding payment for those services, and threatening to strike out on my own as a competitor, I had made what amounted to a threat to use the power of my office against him.

The FBI claimed this threat was extortion by an elected Iowa state senator. I explained how I had filed the required Senate financial disclosure forms, and that, as citizen legislators who work in the capital for less than one-third of the year, we have to have other employment, hence this dispute. They disagreed, arguing that my comments amounted to an attempt to coerce Vasquez. The Des Moines Register reported during my eventual trial that numerous Iowa officials had “denied threats by McCoy, and insisted that no single senator would have the power to influence purchasing decisions” by the state.

However, not satisfied with snaring just me in their net, the agents went on to say that if I gave them the names of other elected officials engaged in illegal activities, the district court might be inclined to look favorably on me. The district office was led by a prosecutor named Matt Whitaker, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. Whitaker, an avowed conservative who has run for state office multiple times as a Republican, was part of what would come to be widely considered a politically motivated effort by the Department of Justice to investigate Democratic officeholders.

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