Sessions out - replacement is Whitaker

Whitaker would probably like to stop the Mueller investigation - here's his opinion piece in CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/06/opinions/rosenstein-should-curb-mueller-whittaker-opinion/index.html

If Mueller has any findings or indictments, Whitaker could bury these pretty easily.

I'm guessing that Trump is going to want Whitaker to be permanent.  


jamie said:
Whitaker would probably like to stop the Mueller investigation - here's his opinion piece in CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/06/opinions/rosenstein-should-curb-mueller-whittaker-opinion/index.html
If Mueller has any findings or indictments, Whitaker could bury these pretty easily.
I'm guessing that Trump is going to want Whitaker to be permanent.  

Marcy Wheeler says  Whitaker can't prevent Mueller from unsealing any sealed indictments. 

"All that said, Mueller was surely expecting just such an eventuality. And the fact that they got Roger Stone attorney Tyler Nixon to testify Friday suggests they were prepping for it, getting the last bit of evidence against Stone in place.
The only question is whether they got the grand jury to approve whatever indictments they were working on. I’d be surprised if Mueller didn’t (unless Rod Rosenstein prevented him from doing so).
If that’s the case, then Whitaker is not going to help Trump get out of his legal troubles. That’s because Chief Judge Beryl Howell, not Whitaker, will make the decision about unsealing anything sealed in this grand jury investigation.
So if Mueller prepared for this very predictable eventuality, then Trump may have just fired a key player in his racist agenda for naught."
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/11/07/matt-whitaker-cant-prevent-mueller-from-unsealing-any-sealed-indictments/

ok maybe indictments can’t be squashed, but Mueller’s report could get buried.


jamie said:
ok maybe indictments can’t be squashed, but Mueller’s report could get buried.

 unless someone on his staff leaks it.


HINT HINT


Is this the same Matt Whitaker?

https://www.rawstory.com/2014/04/iowas-gop-senate-candidates-vow-to-block-judges-who-wont-follow-biblical-law/#13987805275771&req=rpuSetSize&h=247&w=226

Right Wing Watch reported three of the candidates vowed they would block federal judge nominees who did not adhere to “natural law,” which the candidates described as handed down by God.
Radio host and retired Air Force colonel Sam Clovis (pictured above) said he would use natural law as a “litmus test” for judges, while Sarah Palin-backed state Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Red Oak) said judges and senators should understand U.S. laws “come from God” and make their decisions “within that criteria.”
But Matt Whitaker, a former federal prosecutor, declared his opponents had not gone “far enough” and said he would demand federal judicial nominees be “people of faith” who “have a biblical view of justice.”
“As long as they have that worldview, then they’ll be a good judge,” Whitaker said. “If they have a secular worldview, where this is all we have here on earth, then I’m going to be very concerned about how they judge.

GL2 posted this article in 2014.


"New AG was a paid talking head for DC based Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust. He went from working 30 hrs/wk at $63k a year in 2014 to working 40 hrs/wk for $402k a year in 2016. He was the only full time employee as per IRS filings."

https://twitter.com/strickdc/status/1060308375811039232


I think this is another area where outrage is misplaced. The outrage shouldn't be that Sessions was fired. After all he is a cabinet member reporting to the president, and the investigation has been going on for some time and really is supposed to be limited in scope. Trump has made it clear for some time that the guy was going to go. The outrage should be that Sessions was given the job in the first place. He's a bigot. He doesn't seem to be very smart, certainly not a top legal mind. He apparently lied during his confirmation hearings.


I don't think any of us is shedding a single tear for Sessions.  My rage is over the fact that it appears Whittaker was given this position because of his history of vocal opposition to the Mueller investigation, and the fact that since it is a temporary (acting / 7 month) position he is not subject to Senate confirmation.  


Trump is out-Nixoning Nixon.


I wonder why some still object to the term deplorable.

Trump is deplorable, most of his cabinet is and I suspect so are most of his judicial nominees, abetted by deplorables in congress and his deplorable base.

When we think bottom has been reached we find that there is no bottom.


We have a president appointing our top law official who has a blatant disregard for the constitution and judicial norms.

Whitaker said that judges should be Christian and that non-religious should not get judicial appointment. What's next? Lawyers should be religious Christian? Don't go to a Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, non-religious, etc., lawyer because, you know, its just not the right kind?

This is Nuremberg laws thinking, not de jure, but de facto.


Red_Barchetta said:
I don't think any of us is shedding a single tear for Sessions.  My rage is over the fact that it appears Whittaker was given this position because of his history of vocal opposition to the Mueller investigation, and the fact that since it is a temporary (acting / 7 month) position he is not subject to Senate confirmation.  

 Many are arguing that the interim position, being a principal officer reporting to the president, does require Senate confirmation and that the temporary nature is irrelevant.

So where is McConnell in all of this? Why isn't he pushing for confirmation hearing? As much as I dislike Trump, there are many in Washington who enable him, and they were there long before he came on the scene.


I suppose that McConnell is descended from the mostly extinct German Junkers (the Prussian aristocracy) who thought they could control Hitler to achieve their aims. 


I am sure that Trump regards the Constitution as a mere scrap of paper.

And since we are approaching the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day and because I am a history nerd, I offer this:

The Treaty of London bound Britain to go to war in the event that Belgian neutrality was violated as it was in WW I by the Germans.

Informed by the British ambassador that Britain would go to war with Germany over the latter's violation of Belgian neutrality, German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg exclaimed that he could not believe that Britain and Germany would be going to war over a mere "scrap of paper".


Love Chris Hayes' description of the administration's mood. "Palpable panic and feral desperation."


And now we learn that Whitiker is under investigation by the FBI for his association with a Florida company that billed veterans out of their savings.


FilmCarp said:
And now we learn that Whitiker is under investigation by the FBI for his association with a Florida company that billed veterans out of their savings.

That Trump does have a good eye for the best people.  That said, I hope he doesn't appoint Christie as AG, because Christie, while Godless and soulless, is actually pretty competent.


It doesn't matter who the replacement is, he will be "soulless." That is part of the qualifications listed on Zip Recruiter. 


And it will be a "he," unless it turns out to be Sarah Huckabee Sanders who already has the necessary moral qualities.


tjohn said:


FilmCarp said:
And now we learn that Whitiker is under investigation by the FBI for his association with a Florida company that billed veterans out of their savings.
That Trump does have a good eye for the best people.  That said, I hope he doesn't appoint Christie as AG, because Christie, while Godless and soulless, is actually pretty competent.

He also sent kushner's daddy to jail. Lock him up!


Sounds like the justice department gave Trump the ok to appoint Whitaker.  So, I guess the only thing left is - will he recuse himself on the Mueller probe and what effect his role in the company he worked for which is under investigation will play.


Jeff Flake may have put the kibosh on Whitaker. No judicial appointment will be passed through committee until legislation is signed and passed to secure Muller's investigation.


Formerlyjerseyjack said:
Jeff Flake may have put the kibosh on Whitaker. No judicial appointment will be passed through committee until legislation is signed and passed to secure Muller's investigation.

 Flake will need more support so as to guarantee they can't get through the Senate either. McConnell is not going to let a silly rule about committees OK'ing the nominees stop him.



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