Acting AG Matthew Whitaker's wife sent an email to a reporter claiming that the Mueller probe is 'wrapping up'

• Marci Whitaker, the wife of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, sent an unsoliticted email to Slate legal reporter Mark Joseph Stern claiming the Mueller probe is "by all accounts, wrapping up."
• The email was sent in response to a story written by Stern and Slate reporter Dahlia Lithwick.
• The article criticized Whitaker as "a historically awful attorney general."
• Marci defended her husband's previous prosecution of a gay lawmaker and his involvement in a firm shut down by the FTC, and she said he couldn't railroad the Mueller investigation.

Marci Whitaker, the wife of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, sent an unsolicited email to Slate legal reporter Mark Joseph Stern defending many of her husband's actions and claiming that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is coming to an end.

The email was sent in response to a Monday article written by Stern and Slate reporter Dhalia Lithwick, which referred to Whitaker as "a historically awful attorney general" and "one of the least qualified individuals to serve as attorney general in American history."

Whitaker previously served as chief of staff to former AG Jeff Sessions. He was appointed as acting AG after Sessions' ouster in November. Former US Attorney General William Barr has been nominated as a permanent replacement for Sessions.

Multiple legal and constitutional scholars have argued that Whitaker's appointment to acting AG was unconstitutional because he was not confirmed to his current position by the US Senate. And many legal experts and state attorneys general have accused him of being unfit for the position.

In the article, Stern and Lithwick referenced a number of controversial items from Whitaker's past, including his targeting of an openly gay lawmaker while US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa; his disparaging of the Mueller probe before joining the DOJ; and serving on the board of a firm, World Patent Marketing, that was shut down by the FTC.

Read more: From arguing federal judges should be Christian to being involved in a scam shut down by the FTC, here's a full timeline of acting AG Matthew Whitaker's controversial past

Whitaker has also come under fire from not recusing himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation given his past comments about the Mueller probe. DOJ ethics officials declined to make a recommendation on whether Whitaker should recuse due to lack of precedent, but said if they did, they would advise Whitaker to recuse himself.

In the email, Marci pushed back on the authors' arguments that Whitaker's prosecution of a gay lawmaker was "vindictive and possibly homophobic," claimed her husband had no idea World Patent Marketing was scamming its customers, and said there was no way he could railroad the Mueller probe at its current stage in the investigation.

"Why would a person need to recuse oneself for that mild statement?" Marci said of Whitaker's previous suggestion that an attorney general could shut down by the Mueller probe by defunding it.

"By all means, assume that a person who speculated on a hypothetical scenario would then put some dark plan into motion, when by all accounts, the investigation is wrapping up and they [sic] eyes of the nation are upon them. Yeah, that's pretty realistic," she added.

Read more: Acting AG Matthew Whitaker will oversee the Mueller probe despite senior ethics officials advising that it would be a conflict of interest

"Are you hoping that all future appointees' qualifications are to have sat at a desk and pushed paper around for 30 years? Is life experience, both good and bad, somehow disqualifying?," her email continued. "Matt is a really good person and is only serving his country. He's also going to be back in the private sector at some point."