Exclusive: Trump loyalist Matthew Whitaker was counseling the White House on investigating Clinton

[demmiblue]

Source: Vox

Matthew Whitaker, whom President Donald Trump named as his acting attorney general on Wednesday, privately provided advice to the president last year on how the White House might be able to pressure the Justice Department to investigate the president’s political adversaries, Vox has learned.

Whitaker was an outspoken critic of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe before he became the chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in September 2017. But new information suggests that Whitaker — while working for Sessions — advocated on behalf of, and attempted to facilitate, Trump’s desire to exploit the Justice Department and FBI to investigate the president’s enemies.

In May 2018, President Donald Trump demanded that the Justice Department open a criminal investigation into whether the FBI “infiltrated or surveilled” his presidential campaign and whether Obama administration officials were involved in this purported effort. Trump, his Republican allies in Congress, and conservative news organizations — most notably Fox News — were making such claims and amplifying those of others, even though they offered scant evidence, if any, that these allegations were true.

Sessions, Rosenstein, and other senior department officials believed that if they agreed to Trump’s wishes, doing so would constitute an improper politicization of the department that would set a dangerous precedent for Trump — or any future president — to exploit the powerful apparatus of the DOJ and FBI to investigate their political adversaries. Those efforts, in turn, coincided with the president’s campaign to undermine Mueller’s investigation into whether the president’s campaign aides, White House advisers, and members of his own family colluded with Russian to help Trump win the 2016 election.

Read more: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/9/18080656/matthew-whitaker-trump-hillary-clinton-sessions-attorney-general

[elmac]

1. hmmm

[dalton99a]

2. Whitaker is a servile ass licker, a vile partisan hack, and a dangerous fascist.

[msongs]

3. if trump says he doesnt know the guy but he does is that a high crime or misdemeanor? nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Trump, on Fox, Oct 11" "I know Whitaker, he's a great guy"

Link to tweet

[Judi Lynn]

4. That's something former Panamanian right-wing Pres. Martinelli has done,

and his government is coming after him now, and something also done by fascist former unacknowledged dictator Alvaro Uribe has used his own secret spy agency to do for him, and Colombia's government intends to do after the right-wing stops stuffing right-wingers into the dictator's position every election year. With Uribe, it's simply a matter of time until he is also foinf to be "at the big house" himself.

The right-wing can't protect its lead demons forever.

Of course, don't forget Argentina, which tortured and murdered and disappeared over 30,000 suspected political "enemies" as well as Chile, with Pinochet, even the little countries, with full support from the US Gov't, while led by Republican Presidents, and so many covert actions, and some actions we won't hear about without Freedom of Information demands.

Trump and his fellow monsters are truly taking a walk on the wild side, absolutely mad with murderous power. They do NOT intend to use power for good.