*45th POTUS Donald Trump – Page 65

The recent appointment of Matt Whitaker as acting Attorney General following the forced resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has caused many to fear that it means the shutdown of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Since Matt Whitaker is not particularly qualified for the position of attorney general, acting or otherwise, some fear that Whitaker was appointed for the express purpose of not only ending the Russia probe, but firing Robert Mueller.

Fueling speculation is the fact that, in addition to Matt Whitaker’s lack of qualifications for his new role, Whitaker has openly criticized the Mueller investigation (which he will now oversee).

In an interview with CNN in 2017, when Whitaker was a CNN contributor, he talked of a scenario where the person who replaced Jeff Sessions could decrease Mueller’s budget “so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt.”

Also on CNN, Matt Whitaker insisted that Mueller’s investigation would amount to nothing, and that Mueller was crossing a “red line” by investigating the financial ties between the Trump Organization and Russia. Further, he held that no wrongdoing had occurred when Donald Trump Junior met with a Russian attorney to discuss Hillary Clinton.

In early November 2018, in a CNN editorial, Whitaker said that Mueller’s probe might end up “a mere witch hunt.”

“Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing,” wrote Whitaker.

Even if Matt Whitaker were the impartial overseer of the Mueller investigation that the law requires, the inappropriate partiality, as well as questionable ethics of some of his other activities would, under any other circumstances, be disqualifying.

In a recent example, the Office of Special Counsel was recently called on to investigate Whitaker for allegedly violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees’ political activity. While he was Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor under Jeff Sessions, Whitaker received several political donations. Whitaker’s 2014 U.S. Senate campaign committee was found to be currently active, and took in almost $9,000 in political contributions in early 2018.

As the top law enforcement official of the United States, Matt Whitaker should be an impartial overseer of federal investigations. As chief legal principal, he should be above reproach. Matt Whitaker is neither. Until a permanent Attorney General is appointed, it looks as if the fate of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe lies in Whitaker’s hands – and could be in peril.

Kellyanne Conway on Matt Whitaker, Russia probe | Fox News [2018-11-11]

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker meeting with ethics officials |
CBS News [2018-11-13]

Stacey Abrams believes that not only was there mismanagement in the 2018 Georgia elections, there was deliberate interference. Though she acknowledges that in the current process, her opponent, former secretary of state Brian Kemp, had enough votes to win the election for Georgia’s governor, Stacey Abrams’ fight to end voter suppression in Georgia has only just begun.

“The law as it stands says that he (Kemp) received an adequate number of votes to become the governor of Georgia,” Abrams said. “And I acknowledge the law as it stands…But we know sometimes the law does not do what it should, and that something being legal does not make it right. This is someone who has compromised our Democratic systems, and that is not appropriate.”

Stacey Abrams was referring to the fact that Kemp, as Georgia’s secretary of state, oversaw crucial elements of his own election, and in the time leading up to the election, Kemp and his office worked to delay the processing of new voter registrations, deny many other registrations, and purge voting rolls.

Even though, technically, Kemp was within the law in his efforts to purge voter rolls of names of people who hadn’t voted in years, he has systematically been setting up a system to make voting inaccessible to large groups of people, many of them minorities.

“…I believe it began eight years ago with the systematic disenfranchisement of more than a million voters,” Stacey Abrams said. “It continued with the underfunding and disinvestment in polling places, in training, and in the management of the county delivery of services, and I think it had its pinnacle in this race.”

Brian Kemp, in a massive voter-purge effort, issued a policy that required voter registrations to be an exact signature match to personal identifications. He also changed the status of more than 50,000 voter registrations (90 percent of which belonged to minorities) to “pending.” Though the court enjoined this action before the election, voting was still hindered by events such as underprepared precincts, excessively long voter lines, and voting machine malfunctions.

Though Stacey Abrams lost the gubernatorial election to Brian Kemp, she has vowed to help repair the system in Georgia that allowed “Eight years of systemic disenfranchisement, disinvestment, and incompetence (to have) its desired effect on the electoral process…” Stacey Abrams is confident that those systems can be defeated.

Stacey Abrams: ‘Democracy failed’ in Georgia governor race | CNN [2018-11-18]

Stacey Abrams speaks to supporters | Fox News [2018-11-16]

Category: *45th POTUS Donald Trump

Is the Mueller Investigation Safe from Matt Whitaker?

Stacey Abrams Vows to Defeat Voter Disenfranchisement