Like many of Donald Trump’s former administration members, the departure of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker from the Justice Department was sudden, rushed, and no one saw it coming. Now thanks to a new report, more light has been shed about Whitaker’s impromptu departure and it makes Trump look even worse.
According to a report from the New York Review of Books, Whitaker made the decision to jump ship after he realized he’d be compromised and put in a terrible position to betray Trump. This looks extra suspicious now, especially since Whitaker’s appointment as acting attorney general was protested against from the start.
Apparently, Whitaker got spooked after Attorney General Bill Barr was confirmed and it seems to be connected to a line of questioning about whether or not Trump had asked him to interfere in the DOJ’s investigations about him. When the DOJ inspector general got requests to examine Whitaker’s conduct in his attorney general role, Whitaker opted to leave his job instead of being fired or resisting the investigation. Reporter Murray Waas wrote:
A senior Justice Department official in whom Whitaker confided about the matter told me that Whitaker expressed serious concerns over testifying about conversations that he had with the president about the SDNY’s investigation. Whitaker apparently did not understand that by taking a new job with the Justice Department, he could be required to discuss those conversations with the Inspector General. Whitaker, I was told, seemed relieved to learn that after he left the department, he likely could not be compelled to cooperate. Whitaker then sought out other Justice Department officials, this person told me, to determine whether there was any current investigation by the Inspector General at the time. Told that there was not one, but might be one soon, Whitaker resigned.
In one of Whitaker’s conversations (as acting attorney general) with the president, which Whitaker conveyed to others, Trump had questioned him as to whether the SDNY had been overzealous or unfair in its handling of Michael Cohen, a former executive vice president of the Trump Organization, the president’s personal attorney, and ‘fixer.’ Whitaker’s account of that conversation may be crucial to investigators because the president also asked Whitaker if anything could be done to rein in the SDNY’s investigation.”
America seems to have been right about Whitaker — he was someone Trump appointed to protect him, and now that he stepped down we’ll likely never get the truth out of him.
Featured image via screen capture
