Are you kidding.....
Ethics officials said Whitaker should recuse from the Mueller probe, but his advisers told him not to, officials say
By Devlin Barrett and
Matt Zapotosky December 20 at 2:39 PM
A senior Justice Department ethics official concluded acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker should recuse from overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe examining President Trump, but advisers to Whitaker recommended the opposite and he has no plans to step aside, according to people familiar with the matter.
The latest account of what happened underscores the high stakes and deep distrust — within Congress and in some corners of the Justice Department — surrounding Whitaker’s appointment to become the nation’s top law enforcement official until the Senate votes on the nomination of William P. Barr to take the job. Earlier in the day, a different official, who spoke on the condition they not be named, said ethics officials had advised Whitaker need not step aside, only to retract that account hours later.
Within days of the president’s announcement in early November that he had put Whitaker in the role on a temporary basis, Whitaker tapped a veteran U.S. attorney to become part of a four-person team of advisers on his new job, including the question of whether he should recuse from Mueller’s investigation because of his past statements regarding that probe, and his friendship with one of its witnesses, according to a senior Justice Department official.
Whitaker never asked Justice Department ethics officials for a recommendation, nor did he receive a formal recommendation, this official said.
However, after Whitaker met repeatedly with ethics officials to discuss the facts and the issues under consideration, a senior ethics official told the group of advisers on Tuesday that it was a “close call,” but Whitaker should recuse to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the official said. Whitaker was not present at that meeting, they said.
Those four advisers, however, disagreed with the ethics determination and recommended to Whitaker the next day not to recuse, saying there was no precedent for doing so, and doing so now could create a bad precedent for future attorneys general.
However, when Eric Holder became the attorney general in 2009, he decided to recuse himself from overseeing the investigation of former presidential candidate John Edwards. Holder’s reasoning was that he had been part of Barack Obama’s vice-presidential search committee that considered Edwards. In that case, Holder did not consult Justice Department ethics officials before deciding to recuse.
The senior official who described the Whitaker discussions refused to identify the particular Justice Department employees involved.
Typically, ethics officials make recommendations that Justice Department employees are expected to follow, but the final decision on whether to recuse over an appearance of a conflict of interest was always Whitaker’s to make, according to past and current officials.
Whitaker has decided not to recuse from the Mueller case, and a letter to that effect is expected to be sent to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), possibly later Thursday.
So far, Whitaker has not received any briefings on the Mueller investigation, but he may at some point, the senior Justice Department official said.
As the agency’s top official, Whitaker had been nominally supervising Mueller and was recently notified in advance of a key guilty plea in the case.
The back-and-forth inside the department points to the conflicting views and allegiances surrounding its leadership during the Trump administration — a time when the president has publicly attacked federal law enforcement.
The circumstances leading up to Whitaker’s rejection of the view of his department’s ethics office are likely to spur renewed criticism from Democrats, who have already challenged the legality of Trump decision to appoint a Justice Department staffer who has not been confirmed by the Senate to succeed Jeff Sessions, whom the president forced out Nov. 7.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said the Justice Department’s ethics opinion should be shared with Congress, adding, “DOJ officials must avoid not only actual impropriety but the appearance of impropriety.”
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ethics-officials-say-whitaker-need-not-recuse-from-supervising-special-counsel-probe-according-to-a-person-familiar-with-the-matter/2018/12/20/76332392-046b-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html?utm_term=.0395f81dcb81
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