Regarding Whitaker: stop the presses

Earlier today, it was said that Whitaker had been told he didn't have to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. Maybe that wasn't entirely accurate.

A senior Justice Department ethics official concluded acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker should recuse from overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe examining President Trump, but advisers to Whitaker recommended the opposite and he has no plans to step aside, according to people familiar with the matter.

The latest account of what happened underscores the high stakes and deep distrust — within Congress and in some corners of the Justice Department — surrounding Whitaker’s appointment to become the nation’s top law enforcement official until the Senate votes on the nomination of William P. Barr to take the job. Earlier Thursday, a different official, who spoke on the condition they not be named, said ethics officials had advised Whitaker need not step aside, only to retract that account hours later.

[...]

Whitaker never asked Justice Department ethics officials for a recommendation, nor did he receive a formal recommendation, this official said.

However, after Whitaker met repeatedly with ethics officials to discuss the facts and the issues under consideration, a senior ethics official told the group of advisers on Tuesday that it was a “close call,” but Whitaker should recuse to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the official said. Whitaker was not present at that meeting, they said.

Those four advisers, however, disagreed with the ethics determination and recommended to Whitaker the next day not to recuse, saying there was no precedent for doing so, and doing so now could create a bad precedent for future attorneys general.

[...]

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was troubled by how the information was made public.

“It is simply unacceptable that we are learning about this guidance through leaks to the press instead of from the Acting Attorney General himself,” Nadler said.

  WaPo

A smoothly running administration.

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

UPDATE:



Probably that means there weren't any.