Seth Abramson Profile picture
Nov 9, 2018 26 tweets 5 min read Read on X
(THREAD) The Whitaker scandal is deepening, as it becomes clear that Sessions' Russia recusal was a coordinated sham and his firing an act of obstruction—and that his replacement is a White House plant inside the Mueller probe. I hope you'll retweet and read on for more details.
1/ From 2014-17 Whitaker worked for World Patent Marketing—which during his tenure defrauded consumers out of $26 million and was successfully prosecuted by the feds. His involvement in the scam confirmed he had loose morals and that the feds would never want to employ him again.
2/ Despite the seeming impossibility of a man with Whitaker's background getting a job at Justice ever again—he'd been found to have used his former title as a US attorney to fraudulently threaten consumers with valid complaints with criminal penalties—Whitaker found an opening.
3/ Within 60 days of parachuting out of World Patent Marketing as it was being fined $26 million by the feds, Whitaker was working for CNN and telling a fellow attorney panelist that his purpose in working for CNN was to get noticed by one man—Donald Trump—and thereby get a job.
4/ Whitaker spent his time at CNN making ludicrous statements about the Mueller probe: there was no obstruction or collusion, he said; Mueller had no authority to look into any aspect of Trump's finances or to subpoena him, he said. All the while, he hoped Trump was watching him.
5/ Trump was indeed watching. And Whitaker helped him solve a problem: AG Jeff Sessions' Russia recusal. With Sessions recused, Trump wasn't able to get any intel about what was happening inside the probe, and he desperately wanted that intel. Rosenstein wouldn't give it to him.
6/ So Matt Whitaker—who had no business *ever* being hired by the feds again; who'd proven himself willing to *violate the law*; who'd taken firm positions on the Mueller probe *expressly* to please Trump as he watched Whitaker on TV—was quickly made Sessions' new Chief of Staff.
7/ What happened next was just what you'd expect: Whitaker began reporting privately to the White House—going there at least 12 times to meet Trump, per media reports—and during those trips discussing Mueller's probe. It's unthinkable that Sessions didn't know this was happening.
8/ Remember, Sessions has criminal liability in the Russia case—he met secretly with the Russians to negotiate sanctions and discuss the presidential campaign and perjured himself multiple times to Congress. Though recused, he has a vested interest in Trump getting off scot-free.
9/ While meetings between AG Sessions—who was receiving briefings from the head of the Mueller probe, Rod Rosenstein—and Trump would have drawn a lot of attention, Whitaker could meet with the president without nearly as much attention being brought to their clandestine liaisons.
10/ I use the phrase "clandestine liaisons" advisedly—not for the sake of empty drama. Trump's Chief of Staff, John Kelly, privately called Whitaker Trump's "eyes and ears" at Justice, and media reports confirm he was *specifically* prone to discuss the Mueller probe with Trump.
11/ Any secret Whitaker-Trump discussion of Mueller probe was inappropriate—Trump knew it, Sessions knew it, Kelly knew it, and Whitaker knew it. But Whitaker had been selected *because* his history showed he was willing to break rules—and he was perpetually thankful for his job.
12/ Whitaker had therefore been far more helpful to Trump than the recused Sessions, and far more helpful than Rod Rosenstein—who'd refused to pass the intel to Trump about the Mueller probe that Trump wanted. So as ballots were still being counted from the midterm elections...
13/ ...Trump fired AG Sessions, refused to elevate Deputy AG Rosenstein to Sessions' position—as the statutory DOJ order of succession required—and installed his spy Whitaker as AG. He then *lied to America* about whether he'd ever met with Whitaker, saying he "didn't know him."
14/ Meanwhile, over at DOJ, Whitaker was telling friends that he'd *never* recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller probe. This despite his public statements on the probe, which included a detailed plan for a (then-hypothetical) AG decimating the probe by starving it of funds.
15/ Moreover, because Sessions' firing—obscured by Trump forcing Sessions to write a "letter of resignation," then confirmed by Kelly ordering Sessions out of DOJ 3 days before Sessions wanted—was obstruction, and will likely be looked into by Mueller, Whitaker's now a *witness*.
16/ The upshot: legal scholars say Trump's installment of Whitaker as AG violated both the Constitution and statute; Trump has lied repeatedly about his relationship with Whitaker; Republicans refuse to put Whitaker under oath about his intentions; Whitaker is a Mueller witness.
17/ Whitaker's statements on Mueller and his probe, coupled with him being a Mueller witness in a future obstruction case over Sessions' firing—added to the fact that Whitaker was campaign manager for Trump's 2016 National Co-Chair Sam Clovis—render him *historically* conflicted.
18/ On these facts, any investigator's theory of the case would be that Sessions, himself implicated in the Russia probe, allowed his Chief of Staff to be used by Trump as a recusal end-around—a spy—at Justice, and that Whitaker was then rewarded with an illegal elevation to AG.
19/ The Whitaker-Trump plot to destroy Mueller's probe is clear: have AG Whitaker block indictments—he can—foreclose new avenues of investigation, and starve Mueller of funds. And why did Trump move so fast to install him? Because reports say *Trump Jr. is about to be indicted*.
20/ The Whitaker Scandal is as big as Watergate, even as it arises within a Trump-Russia plot 10 times larger/more criminal than Nixon's. And America must wait *2 months* to see Congress do anything about it. The damage Trump and Whitaker can do in that time is incalculable. /end
PS/ Urgent action *is* being taken: Coons (Senate)/Nadler (House) are moving to pass a bill protecting Mueller ASAP; the new House plans to call Whitaker to testify; 1000 protests happened nationwide yesterday; 18 state AGs published a protest letter. But 2 months is a long time.
NOTE/ None of the actions now being taken directly addresses the danger of Whitaker using his power to destroy Mueller's probe without firing him. What's needed is a federal injunction—sought by Mueller or the new House—against Whitaker's installation as AG or his upcoming moves.
UPDATE/ We now know 2 things: 1) Trump discussed events at DOJ with Whitaker—including Russia—12 times; 2) in October Trump discussed with Whitaker (h/t to DM for link) whether he wanted to be the new AG. How much do you want to bet these events coincided? washingtonpost.com/world/national…
UPDATE2/ If you're Mueller—and you're investigating Sessions' firing as Obstruction—*the first witness you want to speak to* is Matt Whitaker, to find out what he discussed with (or promised to) Trump about the Russia probe before replacing the AG. Whitaker *must* recuse himself.
UPDATE3/ See my feed for recent updates on this thread—including whether Sessions even knew Whitaker when Whitaker became his Chief of Staff (he did not), whether Whitaker and Trump had private calls (yes, many), and how often Whitaker went to the White House ("dozens" of times).

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More from @SethAbramson

Jun 14
(POLL) Did you know that Trump has privately floated to donors replacing income taxes with tariffs, which economists say would cost almost every American family $5,000/year *more* than they pay in income taxes right now while giving an annual $1.5 million tax cut to the top 0.1%?
PS/ Make no mistake, this is a proposal to send the United States into a Second Great Depression—a self-inflicted wound Trump might then use to attempt to seize dictatorial power and declare martial law. You *cannot imagine* the chaos and flame this proposed insanity would cause.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 14
BREAKING NEWS: Along Utterly Predictable Ideological Lines—6-3—the Supreme Court Decrees That Machine Guns Being in the Hands of Every Wacko in America Is As American As Apple Pie or Storming the U.S. Capitol to Kill the Vice President of the United States nytimes.com/2024/06/14/us/…
We. Are. Lost.
(PS) Understand something: Congress Can Pass a Bill on It is just something these radicals say when Congress is controlled by their team and will not do so. If a Democratic Party-run Congress passed a bill banning bump stocks, these six would say it violates the Second Amendment.
Read 5 tweets
Jun 13
Just found out that Elon Musk and all his creepy white supremacist friends are having a major b**** session about me here on Twitter

Some mildly threatening stuff, some vaguely antisemitic stuff, some claims about my mental health

IOW, typical neo-Nazi loser projection/snit-fit
What amazes me about this is *not* that Elon Musk follows me obsessively, as I have known that for well over a year, but rather that I just posted a thread in which his customers gave him over 500 suggestions for improving Twitter and instead of doing that he is obsessing over me
By the way—for anyone wondering why these guys are obsessed with me—understand that it has little to do with any special talents I possess but merely the fact that I catalog what these cretins actually say in their dank little digital lairs and *that* they absolutely cannot abide
Read 5 tweets
Jun 10
BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump, Long Rumored to Be A Prescription Drug Abuser, Given Special Treatment and Allowed to Evade a Drug Test During His First Post-Conviction Probation Meeting—Raising Questions About Whether MAGA’s Nominee for Most Powerful Person on Earth Is Now on Drugs
There’s been no explanation whatsoever for why this convicted felon gets to do what would normally be mandatory in-person meetings over Zoom, but we can already see the value in this special treatment for Trump, as it’s *essential* that he hide any illicit drug use from voters.
Remember—the man was convicted of trying to hide critical information from voters in the run-up to an election. Now the *very first* post-conviction decision made by the court system is possibly helping him to hide *another* critical revelation from voters who are entitled to it.
Read 11 tweets
Jun 9
Just remember that every far-reich-wing MAGA attack on Dr. Fauci is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the fact that *Donald Trump* so mishandled the pandemic that multiple studies have said that he is responsible for hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans dying.
BECAUSE MAGAS CANNOT USE GOOGLE APPARENTLY: theguardian.com/us-news/2021/f…
BECAUSE MAGAS CANNOT USE GOOGLE APPARENTLY: journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117…
Read 35 tweets
Jun 9
Actually they're exactly as unhinged and dangerous as I thought

And they're exactly as unhinged and dangerous as I've been saying for years

And me and others who've been saying for years that they're this unhinged and dangerous have been met with little more than public scorn
Imagine the position we'd be in if the millions of us who told the powerful in America that these people were this unhinged and dangerous years ago had been listened to rather than laughed out of the room

And even now that we've been proven right, nothing's changed on that front
Trump did everything I wrote he did in the 2,000+ pages of the NYT-bestselling Proof Trilogy, everything I wrote that he did on my bestselling Proof substack, and everything I've tweeted that he did

By the time the Powers That Be accept the implications of this it'll be too late
Read 11 tweets

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