Breaking News Emails
Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Dec. 20, 2018 / 3:42 PM GMT
By Pete Williams
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that Matt Whitaker, appointed by President Donald Trump as the acting attorney general, had no reason to recuse and is overseeing Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, according to a person familiar with the decision on Thursday.
Formal notice of his role was expected to come in a letter to congressional Democrats who had said his critical comments about the Mueller investigation, made when he was a conservative commentator, require him to recuse — that is, to take himself out of any supervision of the case.
His predecessor, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, recused himself because he was an active campaigner for then-presidential candidate Trump.
In a letter to the Justice Department’s top ethics officer in November, seven Democratic leaders said, “Mr. Whitaker’s statements indicate a clear bias against the investigation that would cause a reasonable person to question his impartiality.”
The letter was signed by the House and Senate Democratic leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, along with the ranking Democrats on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees of the two chambers and by Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House government oversight committee.
Justice Department officials say Whitaker has been overseeing the Mueller investigation since shortly after he was appointed acting attorney general.
