Matthew George Whitaker (born October 29, 1969) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and politician who served as acting United States attorney general from November 2018 to February 2019.

He later wrote opinion pieces and appeared on talk-radio shows and cable news as the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative advocacy group.

[7] On February 15, 2019, after Barr was sworn in on the previous day, Whitaker became a senior counselor in the Office of the Associate Attorney General; he resigned from the Justice Department on March 2, 2019.

[8][9][10] After leaving the Justice Department, Whitaker became a guest on news and analysis shows including as a CNN contributor, and was affiliated with the law firm of Graves Garrett.

In 2005, the company and Whitaker were sued in Nevada for $12,000 in unpaid rental fees for supplies and equipment related to a concrete project in Las Vegas.

Attorneys Michael Heavican of Nebraska and Charles Larson Sr. of northern Iowa,[31] in issuing a warning that persons crossing state lines to obtain pseudoephedrine, a methamphetamine ingredient, could be prosecuted in federal court.

Federal District Court Judge Robert W. Pratt said in 2016 that the prosecutors in the case had misused their authority, forcing him to impose a sentence "disproportionate to her crime," and urged President Obama to grant clemency.

[33] Whitaker also served on a regional anti-terrorism task force, which examined both international and domestic threats,[4] and focused on prosecuting child pornography and violent crimes against children.

[4] From 2005 to 2007, Whitaker's office, together with the FBI, investigated and unsuccessfully prosecuted Iowa State Senator Matt McCoy on charges of attempting to extort $2,000.

[47] In 2014, Whitaker's partners left this partnership, and by spring of 2016, the company was unable to complete the renovations on time, and the city terminated the loan agreement.

[51] Whitaker then chaired the campaign of Sam Clovis, another unsuccessful primary candidate who had been selected to run for Iowa State Treasurer.

[53][54][55] From 2014 to 2017, Whitaker served on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing (WPM), a Florida-based company billed as an invention promotion firm.

[58][61] In one 2015 email mentioning his background as a former federal prosecutor, Whitaker told a customer that filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or "smearing" the company online could result in "serious civil and criminal consequences".

[82][83] On September 22, 2017, a Justice Department official announced that Sessions was appointing Whitaker to replace Jody Hunt as his chief of staff.

[85] As Chief of Staff, Whitaker discussed with and transmitted to U.S. Attorney for Utah John W. Huber a letter from Sessions regarding investigating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Trump's request.

[89] In January 2019, Whitaker along with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray announced 23 criminal charges against Chinese technology giant Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou, including financial fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, theft of trade secret technology, providing bonuses to workers who stole confidential information from companies around the world, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and sanctions violations.

[90][91][92][93] In late 2018, he rejected a request from U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to file criminal charges against Halkbank, the largest state-owned bank in Turkey, for an alleged multi-billion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.

[94] On December 18, 2018, Whitaker signed the regulation that reclassified bump stocks as machine guns, rendering them illegal to possess under federal law.

The commission's report issued in December 2018, called for improved mental health services, recommended that school systems consider arming teachers and other personnel; and advised against increasing the minimum age required for firearm purchases.

[98] The report did not recommend tighter laws to restrict access to guns, prompting criticism from the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Justice Department ethics officials advised Whitaker that there was no financial, personal, or political conflict that would require him to recuse himself from supervision of the Russia investigation.

[100][101] They also said that it was a "close call" and his decision, but in their opinion he "should recuse himself because 'a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts' would question his impartiality due to the statements he had made to the press."

[107] Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at University of Texas, argued that the appointment was permissible under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 1898 case of United States v. Eaton, because it was temporary and because Sessions formally resigned.

[111] John E. Bies, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the OLC in the Obama Administration, wrote that the legality and constitutionality of Whitaker's appointment was an open question.

[114] Maryland had previously filed a suit against then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions regarding his inability to defend the Affordable Care Act in court as part of a broader hostility against the Obama-era law from the Trump administration.

[124] Lawyers for Doug Haning, a former agricultural products executive, filed a motion on November 13, 2018, asking a federal court in St. Louis to rule that Whitaker's appointment as acting Attorney General was illegal and thus he had no standing to hear the case.

An ADL spokesperson said, "The notion that non-Christian judges are disqualified from service is patently wrong, and completely inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly bars any religious test for public office".

[133] During the months prior to joining the Justice Department as Jeff Sessions' chief of staff in September 2017, Whitaker made several statements critical of the Mueller investigation, of which he assumed oversight responsibility upon being appointed Acting Attorney General in November 2018.

[139] In 2017, Vox writer Murray Waas, reported that an unnamed administration source claimed that Whitaker provided private advice to Trump on how the White House might pressure the Justice Department "to name a special counsel to investigate not only allegations of FBI wrongdoing but also Hillary Clinton".

[144] Whitaker was referenced by White House staff after a New York Times article disclosed in September that Rod Rosenstein had discussed secretly taping his conversations with the president and talked about using the Twenty-fifth Amendment to remove Trump from office.