- Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out of his position by President Donald Trump this week, and his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, was appointed as acting AG.
- Whitaker, a former US Attorney from Iowa, has been involved in a number of controversies throughout his career as a conservative commentator and failed US Senate candidate.
- He's argued that all federal judges should be Christians, that the Mueller probe is a "witch hunt," and was on the board of a fraudulent marketing firm that was shut down by the FTC and is now being investigated by the FBI.
The Department of Justice has been mired in controversy this week, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out of his position by President Donald Trump, and his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, appointed as acting AG.
Not only do multiple legal and constitutional scholars argue that Whitaker's appointment to acting AG is unconstitutional because he was not confirmed to his current position by the US Senate, but commentators and state attorneys general have accused him of being unfit for the position.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Whitaker did not plan to recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference and possible crimes on the part of the 2016 Trump campaign-and would block Mueller from subpoenaing the President.
Whitaker has frequently undermined the legitimacy and validity of the Mueller probe in the media, echoing Trump's own talking points that the probe is a "witch hunt" investigating non-existent impropriety by the Trump campaign.
Whitaker served was appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa at the age of 39, and served in that role from 2004 to 2009.
After his tenure as a US Attorney, Whitaker became a regular conservative commentator on political and legal issues for outlets like USA Today and the Washington Examiner. In 2014, he unsuccessfully in Iowa's Republican primary for U.S. Senate. He was appointed as Sessions' chief of staff in September 2017.
Whitaker was not a widely-known figure before last week, but since his appointment as acting AG, some of his more controversial actions and statements have since resurfaced. He once said he believed federal judges should be Christians, has repeatedly disparaged the Mueller probe, and served on the board of a marketing firm that scammed its customers out of $26 million and was shut down by the FTC.
Here's a full timeline of Whitaker's controversial political past: