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Jeff Sessions Resigns #168607
11/07/2018 11:48 PM
11/07/2018 11:48 PM
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Jeff Sessions Resigns As Attorney General; Whitaker To Take Over Mueller Probe

Tyler Durden
November 7th, 2018
Zero Hedge



Just one day after Republicans expanded their majority in the Senate, President Trump revealed in a tweet that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned. Matthew G. Whitaker, Sessions’ chief of staff, will become acting Attorney General until Trump can win a confirmation for Sessions’ replacement from the Senate. Whitaker is expected to be sworn in by end of day Wednesday.

Sessions reportedly said in a letter to Trump that he is resigning at the president’s request.

We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018

….We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018

As speculation turns to the fate of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, the White House has confirmed that Rosenstein will remain in his role (for now, at least). This is key, because Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe, was reportedly on the cusp of resigning back in September after a NYT story which alleged that Rosenstein had tried to corral members of Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, even reportedly suggesting that senior officials surreptitiously record their conversations with Trump.

Immediately after Trump announced Sessions’ resignation, Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said in a statement of his own that protecting the Mueller probe would be paramount. Since Whitaker hasn’t recused himself from the probe, he will become the senior DOJ official overseeing the Mueller, whose investigation is said to be winding down after a handful of departures from his team of prosecutors. This could be a problem for the veteran prosecutor, because Whitaker, a former US attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, said during a stint as a conservative commentator that the Mueller probe was a “witch hunt” and that he believes Mueller has violated the law by looking into Trump’s finances and venturing beyond the original scope of the investigation.

In July 2017, Whitaker said during an interview on CNN that he could envision a scenario where the AG doesn’t fire Mueller, but instead “just reduces his budget to so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt.”

Schumer added that the timing of Sessions’ firing is “extremely suspect” – though most of Washington probably inferred that Sessions’ days were numbered once it became clear Tuesday that Republicans would expand their majority in the Senate.

Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler demanded that Trump offer an explanation for why he fired Sessions. Apparently, Nadler doesn’t follow the president on twitter.

Americans must have answers immediately as to the reasoning behind @realDonaldTrump removing Jeff Sessions from @TheJusticeDept. Why is the President making this change and who has authority over Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation? We will be holding people accountable. https://t.co/weykMuiCxm

— (((Rep. Nadler))) (@RepJerryNadler) November 7, 2018

Speculation has been mounting for months that Trump would fire Sessions – whom Trump has publicly criticized in interviews and tweets over Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Mueller probe. Many believe South Carolina Lindsey Graham will be tapped to replace Sessions, speculation that has only intensified following Nikki Haley’s decision to resign as UN Ambassador, which some believe she did to set herself up to succeed Graham (Haley previously served as governor of South Carolina) should he be tapped for Trump’s cabinet.

Sessions’ being forced out comes after Trump effectively dared House Democrats to use their subpoena power to investigate him, tweeting that “two can play that game” and saying during a press conference on Wednesday that he wouldn’t work with Democrats on legislation if they tried to subpoena him.


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Jeff Sessions Resigns [Re: ConSigCor] #168621
11/08/2018 09:23 PM
11/08/2018 09:23 PM
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Matthew Whitaker said the Mueller probe could become a “witch hunt.” He’s now in charge of it.

Trump has tapped Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff as his acting replacement.

By Alex Ward and Jen Kirby Nov 8, 2018,



Attorney General Jeff Sessions is out, and President Donald Trump has named Matthew Whitaker as his replacement — giving a man who once suggested special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was a “witch hunt” control of the fate of the probe.

Whitaker served as Sessions’s chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions at the Justice Department. The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, would typically be tapped to take over in an acting role, but Trump chose Whitaker instead.

Even though he will be serving in an acting capacity, Whitaker is now expected to oversee the Mueller probe, so long as he doesn’t have any conflicts that would force him to recuse himself. He will have the power to let Mueller keep doing what he’s doing — or curtail or shut down the investigation altogether.

We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018

Whitaker’s name first cropped up in September as a potential acting replacement for Rosenstein, who appeared to be on the verge of getting fired himself.

Whitaker seemed like a curious choice at the time. Trump has repeatedly and publicly chastised Sessions, mostly for recusing himself from overseeing the Mueller probe. Putting a Sessions ally in the second most powerful position at the Justice Department, then, seemed odd.

The question now is why would Trump tap him to take over temporarily for Sessions. The answer could lie in Whitaker’s past criticism of the Mueller probe and one of the president’s favorite foils: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Why Trump may have chosen Whitaker

Whitaker, a former US attorney from Iowa, is the White House’s “eyes and ears” in the Justice Department, according to the New York Times. He’s also a fiscal and social conservative who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2014. He aligns with Trump (and Sessions) when it comes to issues like crime and immigration, but Whitaker comes with the added perk (for Trump) of having publicly criticized Mueller.

For example, Whitaker expressed skepticism about the Mueller probe before joining the Trump administration as Session’s chief of staff in the fall of 2017.

Worth a read. "Note to Trump's lawyer: Do not cooperate with Mueller lynch mob" https://t.co/a1YY9H94Ma via @phillydotcom
— Matt Whitaker (@MattWhitaker46) August 7, 2017

Article is correct, it will be very difficult to ever see evidence discovered by #Mueller grand jury investigation https://t.co/aNKBmi5xI2
— Matt Whitaker (@MattWhitaker46) August 17, 2017

And in August 2017, in an op-ed for CNN, Whitaker blasted Mueller’s investigation.

“Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing,” Whitaker wrote. “If he were to continue to investigate the [Trump family’s] financial relationships without a broadened scope in his appointment, then this would raise serious concerns that the special counsel’s investigation was a mere witch hunt.”

Though there was no public evidence that Rosenstein had declined any significant Mueller request, Whitaker argued that Rosenstein had to limit the scope of Mueller’s probe — the very investigation Whitaker is poised to inherit.

And in a CNN appearance in July 2017, Whitaker offered his own take on how an acting attorney general could sideline Mueller.

“I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment,” Whitaker said, “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.”

Beyond his scrutiny of Mueller, Whitaker has also publicly lambasted Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and Trump’s former election opponent.

While serving as head of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a right-leaning organization that criticizes Democrats on ethics matters, Whitaker said in May 2017 that Clinton should be “extremely grateful” she wasn’t prosecuted for having a private email server.

Three months later, he wrote for the Hill that Clinton’s connections to Ukraine were “worth exploring.”

The Justice Department confirmed Wednesday in a statement emailed to reporters that Whitaker is in charge of all matters under the department’s purview. However, HuffPost’s Ryan J. Reilly reported that DOJ ethics officials haven’t examined whether Whitaker would have to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation because of his prior comments.

Some Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have already called on Whitaker to recuse himself altogether, but there’s no sign yet that that is going to happen.


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Jeff Sessions Resigns [Re: ConSigCor] #168622
11/08/2018 09:25 PM
11/08/2018 09:25 PM
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MSNBC's Maddow Organizing Street Marches to Protest Sessions Firing

'This is a "break the glass in case of emergency" moment'

Nov 8, 2018
By Tom Elliott

Upset over President Trump firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is organizing mass marches.

The protests are slated for today at 5 PM.

“It’s happening,” she wrote online. “This is a ‘break the glass in case of emergency’ plan to protect the Mueller investigation.”

“We knew this would happen at some point,” she added. “The day has arrived.”

Maddow posted the messages to her Twitter account, which has 9.54 million followers.
Tweet #1060307327155363840

The marches are being sponsored by Indivisible.org, a liberal activist group made up of former congressional staffers.

The group is demanding Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker disclaim any authority over the Robert Mueller’s Russia probe:

Donald Trump has installed a crony to oversee the special counsel's Trump-Russia investigation, crossing a red line set to protect the investigation. By replacing Rod Rosenstein with just-named Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker as special counsel Robert Mueller's boss on the investigation, Trump has undercut the independence of the investigation. Whitaker has publicly outlined strategies to stifle the investigation and cannot be allowed to remain in charge of it. The Nobody Is Above the Law network demands that Whitaker immediately commit not to assume supervision of the investigation. Our hundreds of response events are being launched to demonstrate the public demand for action to correct this injustice.

Maddow’s MSNBC colleague, Matt Miller, earlier Wednesday called for “taking the streets” in response to Sessions’ firing.

“This is a national emergency,” Miller said during an appearance on Deadline: White House. “I don’t think you can overstate the gravity of the situation. And it’s incumbent upon everyone in public life to respond to this like it’s an emergency. This isn’t like all of Trump’s other attempts to interfere with the investigation. He’s reached over and found the one person among dozens of political appointees at the Justice Department who has a preordained hostility, publicly stated hostility to the investigation. I think for people in Congress, they need to step up and object to this. I think people — the broad public, this is the time to maybe take to the streets and say this is not what you expect out of the government.”

Maddow shared a website where people can organize protests:
Tweet #1060318604690890752

Maddow also retweeted a Boing Boing posted marketing the protests:
Tweet #1060373209697185793

Maddow’s activism comes as Fox News’ Sean Hannity was recently criticized for appearing at a Trump rally.


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Jeff Sessions Resigns [Re: ConSigCor] #168652
11/11/2018 03:06 PM
11/11/2018 03:06 PM
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airforce Online content
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Whitaker supports state's rights to nullify federal law.

Quote
Matthew Whitaker, the new acting attorney general, has said that states have the right to nullify federal law, but that they need the political courage to do so.

Whitaker, whom President Donald Trump announced as acting attorney general on Wednesday after he fired Jeff Sessions, made the comments during a failed 2014 run for the Republican Senate nomination in Iowa.

"As a principle, it has been turned down by the courts and our federal government has not recognized it," Whitaker said while taking questions during a September 2013 campaign speech. "Now we need to remember that the states set up the federal government and not vice versa. And so the question is, do we have the political courage in the state of Iowa or some other state to nullify Obamacare and pay the consequences for that?"

"The federal government's done a very good job about tying goodies to our compliance with federal programs, whether it's the Department of Education, whether it's Obamacare with its generous Medicare and Medicaid dollars and the like," he added. "But do I believe in nullification? I think our founding fathers believed in nullification. There's no doubt about that."

Whitaker added he didn't think states had the "political courage to nullify Obamacare."

The notion that states can do away with federal law has been at the heart of some of the country's biggest conflicts.

'Nullification as a serious, mainstream legal argument didn't survive the Civil War (or the constitutional amendments that followed)," said University of Texas law professor and CNN contributor Stephen Vladeck. "It's irreconcilable not only with the structure of the Constitution, but with its text, especially the text of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI—which not only makes federal law supreme, but expressly binds state courts to apply it. For someone who holds those views to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer, even temporarily, is more than a little terrifying."
Whitaker also said he believed that the courts were the inferior branch of the federal government, calling into question one of the most consequential rulings in Supreme Court history, Marbury vs. Madison, the 1803 case which established the power of federal courts to determine whether decisions or laws taken by by the President and Congress are constitutional.

"It is completely fraught with peril for 200 years of history and Marbury vs. Madison and the fact that the courts have become more powerful even though they're supposed to be the inferior branch," he added in the speech. "They have become more powerful than the other two branches because the other two branches lack political courage to stand up," he said.

Whitaker made similar comments in support of nullification at an April 2014 Senate debate, where he again said states would need political courage to do it.

"Nullification? I think states could try to nullify," Whitaker said. "But we have moved so beyond our constitutional framework that really the federalist system that was imagined, where the states created the federal government, I continue to be worried that we've moved so far beyond that the states are not willing to exercise that power for fear of what the federal government would do in response," Whitaker said.

"But the federal government is smart. What have they done? They attach strength," he added. "They don't just pass a law and mandate a state does something. They say we really want you to expand Medicaid, for example, and then we put strings attached, that we're going to pay for 95% or whatever the percentage -- just pay a little bit. And so I think nullification would be a brave and bold political act of our state leaders. I don't see that across the nation as I look at who we elect to statewide office."

"Whitaker's view of nullification is strictly political. That is, he would like it, politically, if States could disobey (nullify) federal law. As a legal matter, however, nullification finds no support in Constitutional law," said Michael Zeldin, a CNN legal analyst. "Indeed, Whitaker himself acknowledges this ... As acting Attorney General, I presume he will uphold federal legal principals."

The issue of nullification has never been upheld in federal court and is criticized by constitutional scholars. Most famously, in the 1830s, South Carolina and its US senator, John C. Calhoun, sparked a national crisis by declaring void two federal tariffs. Congress then authorized President Andrew Jackson to collect the tariffs with force.

The conflict ended in 1833 with a compromise tariff and without any use of force. The issue of nullification gained traction with states' resistance to federal government during the Civil Rights movement. The issue had a resurgence during the Obama administration, fueled by the so-called "Tenther" movement and organizations like the Tenth Amendment Center. Some state legislatures have passed non-binding resolutions asserting their sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment, including Alabama in 2010, a move that was praised by politicians, such as former Alabama Supreme Court chief Justice Roy Moore, who lost his bid to fill Sessions' vacated US Senate seat in 2017.


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