He doesn't know Whitaker

"Well, Matt Whitaker, I don't know Matt Whitaker.  Matt Whitaker worked for Jeff Sessions, and he was always extremely highly thought of, and he still is, but I didn't know Matt Whitaker.  He worked for Attorney General Sessions.  He was very, very highly thought of, and still is highly thought of, but this only comes up because anybody that works for me, they do a number on them.  [...]  I didn't speak to Matt Whitaker about it [the Mueller investigation], I don't know Matt Whitaker.  Matt Whitaker has a great reputation  [...]  He's, from what I hear, a very strong personality, and I think that's what they need."

But I don't know him.

President Trump first noticed Matthew G. Whitaker on CNN in the summer of 2017 and liked what he saw — a partisan defender who insisted there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. So that July, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, interviewed Mr. Whitaker about joining the president’s team as a legal attack dog against the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

At that point, the White House passed, leaving Mr. Whitaker, 49, to continue his media tour, writing on CNN’s website that Mr. Mueller’s investigation — which he had once called “crazy” — had gone too far.

[...]

The decision to fire Mr. Sessions and replace him with Mr. Whitaker had been in the works since September, when the president began asking friends and associates if they thought it would be a good idea, according to people familiar with the discussions.

[...]

Mr. McGahn, for one, was a big proponent of the idea. So was Leonard A. Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society who regularly advises Mr. Trump on judges and other legal matters. Mr. Whitaker had also developed a strong rapport with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff. Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, was a fan, too.

[...]

In an October interview on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Trump said: “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.”

[...]

By early October, Mr. Whitaker was close to becoming acting attorney general, people familiar with the situation said, because Mr. Sessions had put out feelers to the White House that he wanted to resign. His relationship with the president had so degraded by that point that he could not make the offer to Mr. Trump in person.

But White House officials wanted to wait until after the midterm elections, when any criticism would not affect voting.

  NYT

Now, that's interesting, because Sessions' letter of resignation began by stating that he was resigning at Trump's request. And that question is going to play in whether Whitaker is legally installed as AG or not.

[In 2004,] Whitaker was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the United States attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. He had no experience in law enforcement, but he had the support of [Iowa Senator Chuck] Grassley, who recommended him. The most important cases Mr. Whitaker cited in his questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee dealt with a personal injury claim and breaches of contracts.

“Iowans knew him as a star football player, of course,” Mr. Grassley said in an interview.

[...]

By October of last year, Mr. Whitaker was telling people that he was working as a political commentator on CNN in order to get the attention of Mr. Trump, said John Q. Barrett, a professor at St. John’s University School of Law who met Mr. Whitaker during a television appearance last June.

His plan worked.

[...]

Colleagues described him as affable and said he quickly ingratiated himself with the staff in Mr. Sessions’s office and those elsewhere in the building. But that reputation shifted over time as some people began to view him as the eyes and ears of the White House, current and former Justice Department officials said.

[...]

“He is smart and politically astute,” said Gregory A. Brower, the former head of the F.B.I.’s congressional affairs office. “He’s certainly become well connected to the administration in a short time.”

And now he'll have eyes and ears in the Mueller investigation that he can take to Trump.

You can read the entire NYT article for a lot of background on Whitaker.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.