Seven months after Matthew Whitaker's brief tenure as acting U.S. attorney general ended with William Barr's confirmation, Iowa's native son returned to speak to the A.M. Des Moines Rotary Club, to which he had once belonged. Quipping that in Washington, "everyone is looking through the lens of 'Can this person help me?'" Whitaker said loyalty actually mattered to Rotarians. He said he had more friends in that clubroom than in all of Washington.
"I was not part of the elite," declared the 50-year-old former U.S. attorney for Iowa, of why he felt mistreated by staffers. "Like, 'you unqualified moron.'"
Members of Congress, he said, had a stunning "inability to coherently put together a line of questioning."
And calling out a "culture of personal destruction," where disparaging leaks about one's past instantly make it onto Twitter and Wikipedia, Whitaker said, "It's no fun when you're in the middle of it."
As one who had contributed to his angst, as he drily pointed out, by giving the Washington press corps old fodder to use against him, I don't doubt that it's not fun on the other end. I'd written a critical column years ago when Whitaker was a U.S. attorney about his investigation of a gay Democratic Iowa lawmaker. It was republished after his appointment. "Glad to have that brought back up," he joked.
I'll give Whitaker this: He's artful at poking fun at himself. It's true that he was controversial from the moment he was named to the post. But seems a bit naive as to why that would be. I'd argue much was of his own doing.
He was immediately suspect for stepping into the job after the man he'd worked for, Jeff Sessions ("one of the most decent men I've ever met"), had put ethics before his own career. Sessions had recused himself from overseeing the Russia probe because he had worked for Trump's election. That angered the president, who demanded Sessions' resignation the day after the midterm elections swept Democrats into the House majority.
Enter Whitaker, who would hold the job from Nov. 7 to Feb. 14, unconcerned with his own conflicts of interest. As a CNN commentator, Whitaker had imagined "a scenario where Sessions was replaced with a recess appointment" who would cut special counsel Robert Mueller's budget so low "that his investigation grinds almost to a halt." He'd also written an op-ed calling on Rod Rosenstein, who had appointed Mueller and was overseeing the investigation in lieu of Sessions, to limit its scope. Otherwise, Whitaker warned, it would look like a political fishing expedition that could hurt Mueller, Trump, Trump's family and the whole country.
Then again, so would a U.S. alliance with a foreign government intended to influence a U.S. election.
Democrats and 18 state attorneys general blasted Trump's appointment of Whitaker, which, for whatever reason, didn't translate into a permanent appointment. Whitaker, a former Hawkeye football player, attorney and businessman, said he was amply qualified to replace Sessions, after serving as a U.S. attorney in Iowa and Sessions' chief of staff.
"I felt the entire ground shift," he said of the December day he was blindsided when Barr was named attorney general. And one can feel some empathy for that, especially considering he and Barr seem to have shared an antipathy for the investigation.
But Whitaker won't speak ill of Trump, calling himself "one of the few people that left on good terms with him" (which makes you wonder where Whitaker's loyalty to Sessions was). It's the other side, he said, that sees the president as an "unhinged whirling dervish spinning out of control."
Whatever their respective politics, the Rotarians treated Whitaker respectfully. A former club president sang him a riff on Don McLean's "American Pie," substituting the lyrics, "So bye-bye this Matt Whitaker guy. 'Your five minutes is up,' was a hell of a line." Photos on a screen behind him showed Whitaker and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler at a hearing involving the Mueller investigation. That was the one where Whitaker famously retorted to Nadler's question: "Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up."
The New York Times characterized that as "a remarkable breach of decorum between two branches of government," observing, "It is highly unusual for a witness, much less an official serving in an acting capacity, to challenge the chairman of a congressional committee that oversees his department."
Whitaker, however, criticized Nadler for calling him in to testify, and then "drilling me" about attempts to interfere with the Mueller investigation, "which I didn't at all." Whitaker said he'd also been "dressed down by staff," who told him he was too hot, looked like a fool and needed to calm down. Though Whitaker didn't specify which staff, a story in The Daily Beast reported staff in the Department of Justice had seen him as a rogue and underqualified new leader who, in the words of one, had long tried to "suck up to the president."
Asked how he felt about losing the spotlight, Whitaker scoffed, "Trust me. I've had it enough." But he also stressed he wasn't looking for pity, noting he'd made "every one of these decisions."
As one who has criticized Whitaker's stances and actions, I found him surprisingly witty, self-deprecating and even naive. I'm sure D.C. partisanship can be savage. But while he aimed his barbs at Democrats, it was the one he won't criticize, the head of his own party, who let him down.
Whitaker's rise to acting AG came because his former boss who held that position was punished by Trump for showing honesty and integrity about his conflict of interests. Then Whitaker was passed over by the same president for another Republican. I'd say Whitaker's real issue is with Trump.
