Warning of an impending constitutional crisis if action is not taken to protect Robert Mueller, congressional Democrats demanded on Sunday that acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel’s investigation and warned of a showdown in Congress if Whitaker does not.
Top Democrats have written to the chief ethics officer of the justice department, asking for an official opinion on whether Whitaker, who has denied Russian interference in the 2016 election and described a strategy for derailing Mueller, should recuse himself from the Russia inquiry.
Whitaker will be the first witness summoned by the House judiciary committee when Democrats take charge in January, the incoming chairman, Jerry Nadler, said, calling Whitaker “a complete political lackey” and “a real threat to the integrity of that investigation”.
Donald Trump fired the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on Wednesday and appointed Whitaker, a former US attorney from Iowa and Sessions’s chief of staff, to be acting attorney general – a move Democrats called illegal.
“We will certainly hold a hearing on that,” Nadler told CNN’s State of the Union. “We will summon or if necessary subpoena Mr Whitaker to ask him about his expressed hostility to the investigation – how he can possibly oversee it when he has come out and said that the investigation is invalid.”
Nadler said Whitaker held “ridiculous legal opinions” and concluded “he’s totally unqualified. The only qualifications seems to be that the president wants him to be a hatchet man to destroy Mueller’s investigation.”
If Whitaker does not recuse himself, Senate Democrats plan to tie legislation protecting Mueller to a spending bill that must pass in order to prevent a government shutdown, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, told CNN.
“If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller or firing Mueller,” said Schumer, calling Whitaker an “extreme partisan”.
“So Congress has to act. Has to act. It’s paramount to the rule of law, for this country not to become a third-world republic.”
In addition to the ethics letter and the legislative maneuvering, Democrats are planning a lawsuit to challenge Whitaker’s appointment because he was not confirmed by the Senate, Schumer said.
In appearances on television and in print over the last two years, Whitaker, who once told a colleague that he was appearing on CNN in hopes of impressing Trump, has trashed the Mueller investigation and described how it might be short-circuited.
“The left is trying to sow this theory that essentially Russians interfered with the US election, which has been proven false,” he said on the Chosen Generation Radio Show in March 2017, in contradiction of the conclusion of the entire US intelligence apparatus, some of which he would oversee as acting attorney general.
Whitaker described an internal strategy for foiling Mueller on CNN in 2017. “I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced,” he said, “it would [be a] recess appointment and that attorney general doesn’t fire Bob Mueller but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt.”
In defense of Whitaker, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told Fox News Sunday Whitaker made such comments as a “private citizen” and argued that the Mueller investigation, which has produced guilty pleas or verdicts from four former Trump aides, had generated more than a million pieces of paper and gone on too long.
Sessions recused himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation based on an ethics ruling like the one Democrats now seek for Whitaker, but it’s not clear that Whitaker would follow such a recommendation, especially if he wishes to hold the president’s favor.
Trump frequently railed at Sessions for recusing himself, evincing an utter heedlessness to the question of a potential conflict of interest should Sessions, a major Trump campaign figure, oversee an investigation of the Trump campaign.
Whitaker appears already to have receded in the president’s favor, however. In a Fox & Friends interview last month, Trump said: “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.”
On Friday, Trump tweeted that he did not know Whitaker.
“Matthew G Whitaker is a highly respected former US attorney from Iowa,” the president tweeted. “He was chosen by Jeff Sessions to be his Chief of Staff. I did not know Mr Whitaker. Likewise, as Chief, I did not know Mr Whitaker except primarily as he traveled with AG Sessions. No social contact.”
That assertion appeared to be a lie. In September, the New York Times reported that Whitaker “has frequently visited the Oval Office and is said to have an easy chemistry with Mr Trump”.