Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.

After treating Attorney General Jeff Sessions 10 times worse than one of his wives he had grown tired of, President Donald Trump finally jettisoned the Alabaman this week for Matthew G. Whitaker, a marginally talented former U.S. attorney from Iowa who thinks candidates for judgeships should be asked if they are “people of faith” with a “biblical view of justice.” He makes Steve Bannon look like Adlai Stevenson. Like Bannon, his highest qualification for serving the president as the nation’s top cop is his skill at slathering Trump with his fawning and bootlicking. As acting attorney general, Whitaker will now exercise oversight over special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, an undertaking he has called a “lynch mob.” In 2017, Whitaker claimed not a “single fact” showed there was any evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 election. He also suggested on CNN that year that Mueller’s team could be throttled by cutting the budget “so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt.”

On Friday, as disbelief over Whitaker’s appointment, and its transparent motive, threatened to drown out the helicopter waiting to spirit Trump on his way to Paris, Trump began to backpedal, saying “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” This despite reports Whitaker had briefed him numerous times in the Oval Office and the fact that last month he told the hosts of Fox & Friends, “I know Matt Whitaker.” When a reporter pressed Trump on whether he had chosen Whitaker to “rein in Robert Mueller.” Trump’s surly response—“What a stupid question”—only proved it had hit home.


Whitaker’s appointment as acting attorney general isn’t good news for the Mueller probe, but it’s nowhere near close to the knockout punch Trump seems to be reaching for. For one thing, the appointment looks legally iffy to former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal and attorney George Conway (Kellyanne’s husband). Writing for the New York Times op-ed page this week, they asserted that the appointment sidesteps the Senate’s power to confirm and hence violates the Constitution. “[I]t it means that anything Mr. Whitaker does, or tries to do, in that position is invalid.”

On a more practical note, Ben Wittes explains in the Atlantic that Trump can’t undo 541 days of Mueller’s work by putting Whitaker in a supervisory capacity now. Mueller has subpoenaed the hell out of the Trump universe, enlisted countless prosecutors and FBI agents in collecting and assessing evidence, and refined many of the unknown unknowns of the Russian meddling into known knowns.

One example of Mueller’s share-the-wealth strategy was his decision to hand off the prosecution of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to prosecutors of the Southern District of New York to make sure that if anything happened to his investigation, Cohen would still face the music. Mueller “has also let other components handle matters involving core questions of Russian interference in the U.S. elections, such as the Maria Butina and Elena Khusyaynova prosecutions,” Wittes continues. By farming out prosecutions and not insisting on handling every associated case, Mueller has schooled others in the Department of Justice in the ways of the scandal and avoided charges that he’s the big foot from Washington who wants to prosecute every case that falls into his sights.

If Whitaker’s metaphor is to starve Mueller by cutting his budget, his timing is way off. Mueller is fatter on Trump evidence right now than a September grizzly gorging on a salmon run. Whitaker might be able to hinder Mueller on the margins, questioning his investigative and prosecutorial decisions and overturning any move that violates Department of Justice practices. But Mueller is smart enough to have prepared contingency plans should Trump or somebody like Whitaker attempt to thwart an ethical investigation that has already resulted in convictions or guilty pleas by several of the president’s men, including Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos.

With the Democrats taking charge of the House investigative committees starting in January, Mueller now has a national megaphone for his findings should Trump and Whitaker attempt to prematurely shut him down. As my colleague Darren Samuelsohn writes, incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff plans to reopen his committee’s Russia investigation. Democrats also have made plans to issue a summons to the special counsel to testify before the TV cameras should Trump attempt to short-circuit his investigation. “Mueller has used silence as a powerful strategic instrument throughout his investigation,” Wittes writes, giving him “enormous moral and political power” on the day he decides to declare “that his investigation is facing interference from the Justice Department.” Mueller could also write an unclassified summary of the report that he is currently working on for the attorney general and give it to the Democrats for release, which could be damaging to Trump’s political and legal futures.

Spooked at the prospect of a wide-ranging investigation by House Democrats and the prospect of his tax returns being examined by them, too, Trump threatened via Twitter this week that he would use his Senate majority to retaliate by investigating Democrats for leaks of classified information. “Two can play that game!” But even if Trump’s proxies find evidence of Democratic wrongdoing, that won’t help him much if the Democrats find and air damaging material on him. The game of mutually assured destruction works only if it deters the other side from acting, and there’s no indication the Democrats have been cowed by Trump’s latest bluster.

As the week ended, Trump found himself plagued by a legal matter that can’t be resolved by persuading a delivery truck with Iowa plates to run over Robert Mueller. The Wall Street Journal, which has controlled the Trump-hush-money-to-his-paramours story from the beginning, reports that denials by Trump, his legal team and his advisers over the past two years that he wasn’t involved in payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal are bunk.

“The Wall Street Journal found that Mr. Trump was involved in or briefed on nearly every step of the agreements. He directed deals in phone calls and meetings with his self-described fixer, Michael Cohen, and others. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has gathered evidence of Mr. Trump’s participation in the transactions,” the newspaper writes. Where is this information coming from? The story cites interviews with three dozen people with direct knowledge of the events or who have been briefed on them, in addition to court filings and corporate records. David Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump whose National Enquirer has long protected him and who paid McDougal for her silence, was granted “immunity for his grand jury testimony” the Journal reports, and “told investigators about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the McDougal deal.”

If found guilty of violating campaign finance law, Trump could face five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to Larry Noble, former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission. Maybe he could be cellmates with Manafort.

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Shut down my column with emailed threats to investigate me: Shafer.[email protected]. My email alerts don’t require threats to roll over, just angry looks. My Twitter feed plans to go to Congress if threatened. My RSS feed wants to edit the National Enquirer if the job becomes available.

