Whitaker will break public trust and federal law if he controls Mueller investigation Whitaker must recuse from the Mueller investigation to make clear he will fulfill his oath to serve the Constitution and not Trump's personal agenda.

Noah Bookbinder, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen | Opinion contributors

In our system, public service is a public trust. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will injure that public trust if allowed to oversee vital investigations he has publicly undermined — and where he has an apparent disqualifying relationship with a key witness. That is why our watchdog group has filed a demand with the Justice Department that Whitaker be recused from these matters under applicable ethics rules.

President Donald Trump has been implicated in two related FBI investigations which are overseen by Justice. There is evidence he may have personally obstructed justice, and his family and circle are implicated in a bevy of other potential crimes. And the man Trump has appointed to run the agency tasked with ascertaining his culpability is a longtime political supporter best known for appearing on CNN to vociferously defend the very conduct now under scrutiny in three investigations:

►Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of any links and coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign

►The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York's investigation of campaign finance and other possible offenses involving the president’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, the Trump Organization, and the Trump Campaign and Trump himself.

►The over-arching investigation into whether the president obstructed justice throughout the course of these or other investigations.

Whitaker laid out plan to halt Mueller probe

All of this will now be controlled by Matthew Whitaker, who has likened the special counsel to a “lynch mob.”

Never before has a president appointed an acting attorney general who is on record describing how the president could curtail an ongoing investigation of the president’s conduct. In a July 26, 2017 appearance on CNN, Mr. Whitaker discussed ways to undermine the special counsel investigation, including by putting pressure on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (overseeing Mueller) to cut Mueller's budget. Indeed, Whitaker also imagined a scenario that strikingly resembles the one now before us: “I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with 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.”

Applicable law mandates recusal under these circumstances. Justice Department and prosecutorial jobs are unique because of the power they confer and the high standards of independence and impartiality that come with them. As such, prosecutors are supposed to be above the political and personal hurly-burly of the White House or Congress. To that end, Justice Department regulations require recusal from a criminal investigation if a department official has a political or personal relationship with a person or organization that is “substantially involved” or has a “specific and substantial interest” in a criminal investigation.

More:Here are 5 reasons why Matthew Whitaker isn't attorney general material

Trump political protection plan is replace Sessions with Mueller saboteur

Whitaker's Supreme Court positions are incoherent, may cause constitutional crisis

In addition to his association with Trump, Whitaker reportedly also has a personal and political relationship with Sam Clovis, the former chief policy adviser and national co-chairman of the 2016 Trump campaign — and a key witness in the Russia investigation. Of particular note, Clovis told Reuters last week that Whitaker served as a “sounding board” for issues related to the Trump campaign while Clovis was working on the campaign. If Whitaker did indeed counsel Clovis about campaign-related issues that are now the subject of investigation, Whitaker has a political relationship that disqualifies him from supervising investigations that implicate the Trump campaign.

Whitaker’s personal relationship with Clovis stretches to when Whitaker served as the chairman of Clovis’ unsuccessful 2014 campaign for Iowa State Treasurer. Clovis also reportedly has “kept up” with Whitaker and told the Washington Post that he texted Whitaker congratulations when he became acting attorney general. Clovis played a significant role as a witness to key events under investigation by the special counsel. For example, he has been reported in court documents to have been the Trump “campaign supervisor” who responded “great work” to George Papadopoulos when briefed about his meeting with a Russian official and woman introduced as “Putin’s niece.”

In addition, the Standards of Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch impose fundamental duties on Whitaker to “act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual” and to avoid even the appearance of a violation. Whitaker should also recuse from the special counsel and Southern District of New York investigations because the statements he has made about the investigation raise significant questions regarding his impartiality — including statements about the specific conduct under investigation.

Fulfill oath to serve Constitution, not Trump

For example, in a May 10, 2017 op-ed in The Hill, Whitaker defended the president’s firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. In the same piece, Whitaker opposed the appointment of a special counsel to take over the investigation. In a July 10, 2017 appearance on CNN, Whitaker defended Trump campaign officials or a decision that is at the center of the special counsel’s investigation of possible coordination between the campaign and Russia.

"You would always take the meeting," Whitaker said of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort took with Russians who had promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. As a political candidate, he added, “you certainly want to have any advantage, any legal advantage you can, and one of those main advantages is to know what your opponent is either, you know, I mean all sorts of things that could be happening — Hillary Clinton, there was so much smoke around her."

Whitaker’s background and public musings suggest he will be less than independent in his judgments. His recusal must be swift and public. He needs to make clear that he will fulfill his oath to serve the Constitution rather than the personal agenda of the president. Trump’s repeated attacks on the integrity of these investigations, and requests for Whitaker's predecessor to join him in these assaults, demand nothing less than the unequivocal assurance that Whitaker will play no part in undermining the rule of law that he is now sworn to uphold.

Noah Bookbinder is the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Richard Painter, the vice chair of CREW, was chief ethics counsel during the George W. Bush administration. Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the chair of CREW, was ethics counsel for President Barack Obama. Follow them on Twitter: @NoahBookbinder @RWPUSA @NormEisen