Matthew Whitaker facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Matthew Whitaker
Official portrait, 2018
United States Ambassador to NATO Nominee
Assuming office TBD
President	Donald Trump
Succeeding	Scott Oudkirk (acting)
United States Attorney General
Acting November 7, 2018 – February 14, 2019
President	Donald Trump
Deputy	Rod Rosenstein
Preceded by	Jeff Sessions Rod Rosenstein (acting)
Succeeded by	William Barr
United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa
In office June 15, 2004 – November 25, 2009
President	George W. Bush Barack Obama
Preceded by	Stephen Patrick O'Meara
Succeeded by	Nicholas A. Klinefeldt
Personal details
Born	Matthew George Whitaker (1969-10-29) October 29, 1969 (age 55) Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Marci Whitaker
Children	3
Education	University of Iowa (BA, MBA, JD)

Matthew George Whitaker (born October 29, 1969) is an American lawyer and politician. He served as the acting United States Attorney General from November 2018 to February 2019. The Attorney General is the head of the Justice Department. This person is the chief law enforcement officer and chief lawyer for the U.S. government.

President Donald Trump appointed Whitaker to this role after Jeff Sessions resigned. Before this, Whitaker was Chief of Staff for Attorney General Sessions. He held that job from October 2017 to November 2018.

Whitaker played tight end for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes football team. This was while he was a student at the University of Iowa. He even played in the 1991 Rose Bowl game.

In 2002, Whitaker ran for Treasurer of Iowa as a Republican. From 2004 to 2009, he worked as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. He also ran for the United States Senate in 2014. Later, he wrote articles and appeared on TV as the leader of a group called the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT).

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Whitaker to be the United States Ambassador to NATO.

Early Life & College Football

Matthew George Whitaker was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 29, 1969. He went to Ankeny High School, where he was a football star. In 2009, he was added to the Iowa High School Football Hall of Fame.

Whitaker then attended the University of Iowa. He earned a bachelor's degree in communications in 1991. He also received his business (MBA) and law (Juris Doctor) degrees in 1995.

From 1990 to 1992, Whitaker was a backup tight end for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes football team. He played under coach Hayden Fry. This included the 1991 Rose Bowl, where the Hawkeyes lost to the Washington Huskies. Whitaker played in 33 games and caught 21 passes for 203 yards. He scored two touchdowns.

In 1993, he received the Big Ten Medal of Honor. This award is given to one male and one female student-athlete each year. It recognizes excellence in both schoolwork and sports at each Big Ten Conference school. Whitaker finished college in three and a half years. He played his last football season while also attending law school.

Whitaker had often said he was an Academic All-American in college. However, a 2018 investigation by The Wall Street Journal found this was not quite true. He was chosen for a regional academic honor in 1992. An Iowa football guide mistakenly called this honor "Academic All-American."

Career Overview

After law school, Whitaker lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1995 to 2001. He then moved back to Iowa.

Private Law & Business Activities

Whitaker worked for several law firms. These included Briggs & Morgan in Minneapolis and Finley Alt Smith in Des Moines. He also worked as a lawyer for the national grocery store chain SuperValu.

He owned or co-owned a company that made trailers from 2002 to 2005. He also owned a day-care center from 2003 to 2015. In 2003, Whitaker and a partner started Buy the Yard Concrete. This company was based at Whitaker's home in Urbandale, Iowa.

In 2005, the company and Whitaker were sued in Nevada. This was for $12,000 in unpaid rental fees for equipment. The lawsuit was settled outside of court.

In 2002, Whitaker ran for Treasurer of Iowa as a Republican. He lost to the current Democrat Michael Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald won with 55% of the votes, while Whitaker received 43%.

United States Attorney Role

Whitaker's U.S. Attorney portrait

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley suggested Whitaker as one of three lawyers for the job of United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. In February 2004, President George W. Bush nominated Whitaker. Some people said Whitaker did not have enough legal experience for the role.

Senate Democrats delayed his nomination for four months. Whitaker was finally confirmed on June 15, 2004. In his first year, Whitaker issued a record 500 indictments. An indictment is a formal accusation that someone has committed a crime.

Whitaker also worked on a regional anti-terrorism task force. This group looked into threats from both inside and outside the U.S. They also focused on prosecuting violent crimes against children.

In 2007, Whitaker led an investigation into four executives. They worked for the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC). These executives were accused of stealing over $2 million from the agency. The main person accused, CIETC CEO Ramona Cunningham, pleaded guilty in June 2008.

Whitaker resigned in November 2009. This was after Nicholas A. Klinefeldt, nominated by President Obama, was confirmed as his replacement.

Later Private Work & Politics

From 2009 to 2017, Whitaker was a managing partner at a law firm in Des Moines. In 2011, he applied to be a judge on the Iowa Supreme Court. However, he was not chosen as a finalist.

In 2011, he also helped start Whitaker Strategy Group. This was a company that worked on lobbying and consulting.

In 2012, Whitaker and two partners invested in an apartment building in Des Moines. They planned to make it affordable housing. By 2016, the company could not finish the renovations on time. The city ended their loan agreement. Another contractor then bought and finished the building.

Whitaker ran for the Republican nomination in the 2014 United States Senate election in Iowa. He finished fourth in the primary election. He received 11,909 votes, which was about 7.5% of the total.

World Patent Marketing

From 2014 to 2017, Whitaker was on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing (WPM). This company claimed to help people promote their inventions. An FBI investigation later found that the advisory board members never actually met.

In 2014, Whitaker publicly supported WPM. He said they acted ethically. The company gave money to Whitaker's 2014 Senate campaign. Over three years, WPM paid Whitaker less than $17,000 for his work.

Some customers said the company used Whitaker's past job as a U.S. Attorney to threaten them. In one email, Whitaker told a customer that complaining could lead to "serious civil and criminal consequences." The owner of Ripoff Report said Whitaker called him in 2015. He demanded that negative reports about WPM be removed from his website.

The company was later found to have used dishonest practices. In 2017, investigators looked into whether Whitaker had threatened critics. Whitaker refused to give records in October 2017. This was shortly after he joined the Department of Justice.

A spokesperson for Whitaker said he did not know about the company's fraud. The court official handling the case also said he had "no reason to believe that [Whitaker] knew of any of the wrongdoing."

Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust

From October 2014 to September 2017, Whitaker was the leader of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT). This is a conservative group that focuses on legal and ethical issues in politics. In 2015 and 2016, Whitaker was the only full-time employee.

FACT received $1 million in early funding from conservative donors. Whitaker did not name these donors to the media. The group's tax records show that most of its funding came from a group called Donors Trust. This group allows donors to remain anonymous.

From 2014 to 2018, FACT reported receiving $3.5 million. As a nonprofit group, it did not have to reveal its donors. Whitaker's salary was the group's largest expense. He earned $1.2 million from the group over four years. This was his main source of income from 2016 onward.

While Whitaker led FACT, the group often focused on the Hillary Clinton email controversy. They also looked into business dealings of Hillary Clinton. The group claimed to be nonpartisan. However, they asked for ethics investigations into many Democratic politicians and groups. They did this for only a few Republicans.

During his time at FACT, Whitaker wrote articles for USA Today and the Washington Examiner. He also appeared often on conservative talk radio and TV news shows.

CNN Contributor

For four months, from June to September 2017, Whitaker was a CNN contributor. One month before joining the Justice Department, he wrote an article for CNN. It was titled "Mueller's Investigation of Trump is Going Too Far." He also shared a link to an article that said the Mueller investigation should be limited. It said it should not look into Trump's money matters.

Trump Administration Roles

Justice Department Chief of Staff

On September 22, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Whitaker as his chief of staff. This role meant Whitaker would help Sessions decide what was important for the Attorney General to focus on.

As Chief of Staff, Whitaker discussed a letter from Sessions with the U.S. Attorney for Utah, John W. Huber. This letter was about investigating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Trump's request. The Justice Department first said the letter did not exist. Later, they shared an email from Whitaker to Huber about the investigation and Sessions' letter.

Acting Attorney General

When Jeff Sessions resigned on November 7, 2018, Whitaker was appointed as Acting Attorney General. In this role, he directly oversaw Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. This investigation had been overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein before Whitaker.

Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce and Federal Bureau of Investigation announces 23 criminal charges against China's Huawei and Meng Wanzhou.

In January 2019, Whitaker announced 23 criminal charges against the Chinese company Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou. He did this with other officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. The charges included financial fraud, money laundering, and theft of trade secret technology.

In late 2018, Whitaker turned down a request from U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. Berman wanted to file charges against Halkbank, a large state-owned bank in Turkey. This was for a plan to avoid U.S. sanctions on Iran. Whitaker also started putting the First Step Act into action. This law aims to reform the criminal justice system.

Oversight of the Special Counsel Investigation

In 2017, Whitaker had often criticized the Mueller investigation on TV and social media. He said there was no secret cooperation between Russia and the Trump campaign. When he became Acting Attorney General, he took over supervision of this investigation.

Justice Department ethics officials told Whitaker that he did not have a financial or personal reason to step away from overseeing the Russia investigation. However, they also said it was a "close call." They believed a "reasonable person" might question his fairness because of his past public statements. Whitaker decided not to step away. He did not want to be the first attorney general to do so based on comments in the news.

In February 2019, Whitaker told Congress that he had not interfered with the special counsel investigation. In July 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller also confirmed that there was no interference.

Legality of the Appointment

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said in 2018 that Whitaker's appointment was constitutional. This was because it was temporary. The OLC noted that other people not confirmed by the Senate had served in important acting roles many times in U.S. history.

Many legal experts and former Justice Department officials had different opinions. Some argued the appointment was allowed under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Others said it was unconstitutional because the Attorney General is a "principal" officer who needs Senate approval.

Legal Challenges

There were at least nine legal challenges to Whitaker's appointment, but none of them succeeded. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh tried to stop Whitaker's appointment. Maryland argued that Whitaker's appointment went against the Constitution. They said that important U.S. officers must be approved by the Senate.

Because Whitaker was not in a Senate-confirmed job when he was appointed, Maryland argued that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein should have been the acting Attorney General. A judge dismissed this case in February 2019. Two other federal courts also ruled that Whitaker had been properly appointed.

Three Democratic senators filed a lawsuit in November 2018. They said the President violated the Constitution. A lawyer also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if Rod Rosenstein should be the acting Attorney General instead of Whitaker. The Supreme Court denied this request in January 2019.

Views on Law & Policy

Constitutional Ideas

During his 2014 Senate campaign, Whitaker said that "the courts are supposed to be the inferior branch." He was critical of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803). This decision allows courts to review if laws are constitutional.

Whitaker also said in 2014 that he would not support "secular" judges. He believed judges should "have a biblical view of justice." He said he meant "New Testament" justice. Some groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, said this implied he would not allow non-Christian judges to serve. They called this unconstitutional.

In 2013, Whitaker stated he supports the right of states to nullify federal laws. This means states could refuse to follow federal laws they disagree with.

Views on Mueller Investigation

Before joining the Justice Department in 2017, Whitaker made several statements criticizing the Mueller investigation. He later oversaw this investigation as Acting Attorney General. He said there was no obstruction of justice or secret cooperation with Russia. He also called the investigation "political."

He wrote an article titled, "Mueller's Investigation of Trump Is Going Too Far." In it, he expressed doubts about the investigation. He called the appointment of Mueller "ridiculous."

Relationship with Donald Trump

Donald Trump noticed Whitaker's supportive comments on CNN in 2017. In July, White House lawyer Don McGahn interviewed Whitaker. Trump wanted him to join his legal team to challenge Robert Mueller. Trump's allies believed Whitaker was hired to limit the impact of the investigation.

In September 2017, Whitaker became Jeff Sessions' chief of staff. An anonymous source claimed Whitaker wanted to replace Sessions. By September 2018, Whitaker was considered a possible replacement for Don McGahn as the White House Counsel. In September 2018, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly called Whitaker the White House's "eyes and ears" in the Justice Department.

Trump had spoken with Whitaker in September 2018 about possibly becoming Attorney General. The New York Times described Whitaker as loyal to Trump. They said he visited the Oval Office often and had "an easy chemistry" with Trump.

In October 2019, after leaving the White House, Whitaker defended Trump during the impeachment investigation. Whitaker said there was no evidence of a crime by the President. He also stated that "abuse of power is not a crime" in the Constitution.

Other Policy Views

Whitaker's website once said he was a "Christian who regularly attends church with his family." He stated in 2014 that "life begins at conception." In 2014, he also said he would protect religious rights. He believed the government should not force people to go against their faith.

Whitaker claimed he was not a "climate change denier." However, he said the evidence was "inconclusive." He did not support rules on carbon emissions.

He has said he wants to end family reunification for immigrants. He is also against amnesty for illegal immigrants. In 2014, Whitaker represented a blogger who was fired for calling homosexuality "sinful." He argued this was a protected expression of religious beliefs. Whitaker supported getting rid of the Affordable Care Act in his 2014 Senate campaign.

Electoral History

2002 Iowa State Treasurer

2014 U.S. Senator for Iowa

See also

In Spanish: Matthew Whitaker para niños

• Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2018)