Besides content which clearly is on point, the video got posted as "Is Trump's Acting Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker, a Mike Pence Pick?"
Going after Pence at this stage of things can't be all bad, right? Because going after Pence anytime will always ring a bell.
Early in the Seder video the Nov. 9, image and headline from this Salon item by Digby was screened: Breaking bad: Low-grade right-wing hack is now our nation’s leading law enforcement officer -- Diabolical scheme or screw-up? Matt Whitaker is a surprise pick as acting attorney general, and not in a good way; stating in part [links omitted]:
Trump didn't do the normal thing and put the deputy attorney general in charge until a new person could be confirmed by the Senate. Of course he didn't. He named a completely unqualified toady by the name of Matthew Whitaker, who had been serving as Sessions' chief of staff for the past year. Nobody seems to know exactly how he came to have that particular job, but what we know is that Whitaker was a small-time political player from Iowa who once served as a U.S. attorney and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in the 2014 midterms. More recently he was a crony of Sam Clovis, the Iowa politico who worked on the Trump campaign, got himself all caught up in the Russia investigation and had to resign his sinecure at the Department of Agriculture.
Whitaker has also worked as a sole practitioner for a right-wing, dark-money-funded organization called the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), where he disseminated "legal opinions" in the media in support of Republican politics. Clovis reportedly advised him to go to New York and become a Trump defender on TV in order to get noticed by the president so he could get a judicial appointment. CNN hired him, naturally.
In other words, Whitaker is a political hack, and not a particularly high-level one. But he apparently impressed Trump with his extreme sycophancy, so he went directly from guest hits on CNN to being the attorney general's chief of staff. And now he is the acting attorney general of the United States.
This shouldn't be too surprising, really. Recall that Trump wanted to make his personal pilot the head of the FAA. He brought in his totally inexperienced son-in-law to run his Middle East policy and much else. His daughter is a senior staffer. He liked the White House physician and tried to appoint him as secretary of Veterans Affairs. That's how things work in Trumpworld.
Going next to Hullabaloo, Nov. 9: Whitaker the Drug Warrior, Nov. 22.
NBC News, Culture warrior? LGBTQ advocates say Matthew Whitaker 'raises alarm bells' - The acting attorney general has a public record spanning more than a decade that concerns a number of LGBTQ advocates., Nov. 15.
Guardian, Nov. 26, Revealed: Matthew Whitaker favors hardline anti-abortion policies.
The Economist, Nov. 20.
CNN, Nov. 25, Schiff: 'We are going to bring Whitaker before the Congress'
Adam Silverman, BalloonJuice, Nov. 9.
San Diego Union-Trib, Nov. 21, Right-leaning nonprofit with hidden donors paid acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker nearly $1 million before role.
Wikipedia: Matthew Whitaker (attorney) [Redirected from Matthew Whitaker (politician)]
Another, above and beyond others - EmptyWheel [not excerpted, read the item, please] - and with 101 comments and a provocative title not entirely fleshed out, the Empty Wheel post and comment thread, as usual for the site, intrigue:
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NYT, "Matthew Whitaker: An Attack Dog With Ambition Beyond Protecting Trump," dated Nov. 9, beginning [links omitted in excerpting]:
WASHINGTON — 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.
Fifteen months later, the attack dog is in charge.
So, the Whitaker entry was during the McGann tenure; meaning McGann's history is of interest; Wikipedia giving more detail, including McGann's role in judicial nominations. Guardian coverage was unfavorable. Nothing in the Wikipedia entry suggests McGann was responsible for finding and picking Whitaker; but the NYT item suggests he handled vetting.
Later in the NYT item:
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.
The goal was not unlike the first time the White House considered hiring Mr. Whitaker. As attorney general, he could wind down Mr. Mueller’s inquiry like the president wanted.
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.
Note that Ayers, not Pence himself, is alleged to have had an advisory role. Whether Ayers was a deliberate surrogate is an open question.
More NYT:
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.”
(On Friday, after reports surfaced that Mr. Whitaker had called courts “the inferior branch” of government and had been on the advisory board of a company that a federal judge shut down and fined nearly $26 million for cheating customers, Mr. Trump made a bizarre comment to reporters that he was not familiar with Mr. Whitaker. [...])
[...] White House officials wanted to wait until after the midterm elections, when any criticism would not affect voting.
The concern was well founded. At 2:44 p.m. Wednesday, hours after the election was over, Mr. Trump posted his decision on Twitter that Mr. Whitaker would “become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States.”
“He will serve our Country well,” the president wrote.
Within minutes, Democrats criticized Mr. Whitaker’s previous comments about the Russia inquiry and demanded that he recuse himself from overseeing it. He also came under fire for serving on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing in Miami, the company that has been accused by the government of bilking millions of dollars from customers.
Mr. Whitaker’s time as executive director of the conservative Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, which accused many Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, of legal and ethical violations also came under scrutiny. So did his legal views, including his stated belief that Marbury v. Madison, which established judicial review, was a bad ruling.
For now, Mr. Trump is standing by Mr. Whitaker — at least as a temporary solution.
[... Whitaker, as a U.S. Attorney in Iowa] came under criticism for a case his office brought in 2007 against the first openly gay member of the Iowa Legislature, Matt McCoy, a Democrat.
Mr. Whitaker’s office indicted Mr. McCoy on an attempted extortion charge, accusing him of using his authority as a state senator to force a former partner in a home security business to pay him $2,000. The former partner was paid by the F.B.I. to act as an informant and for several months recorded his conversations with Mr. McCoy.
But the evidence was not convincing. After a five-day trial in United States District Court in Des Moines, a jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning a verdict of not guilty.
“It was a horrible case — it was made up — and it was designed to take a high-profile Democrat who was popular, openly gay and listed as one of the top 100 rising stars in the Democratic Party and smear me,” Mr. McCoy said in an interview.
Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, rebutted Mr. McCoy. “The allegations of improper prosecution are ridiculous,” she said. “The Justice Department signed off on the case. The F.B.I. investigated it, and career prosecutors handled the case every step of the way.”
As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Whitaker continued to show political ambition. Matt Strawn, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said Mr. Whitaker was someone “known inside Republican circles as someone you want on your side in a fight.”
[...] 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. Mr. Whitaker returned to the Justice Department in October 2017, having once again earned the support of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers inside the West Wing.
That is about all the NYT item stated, with "Mr. Trump's closest advisers inside the West Wing," not spelled out. Whatever role daughter and son-in-law may have had was not stated in the item. Ditto for Mike Pence.
Birds of a feather. The Hill, before the second Obama term, "Pawlenty beefs up Iowa team, makes first SC hire - By Jordan Fabian - 05/17/11 11:07 AM EDT," FLOCKING FLAGGED:A
Likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty added two top members to his growing campaign team over the past two days in preparation for making his run official.
[...] And on Tuesday, former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker was named to lead Pawlenty's Iowa steering committee.
Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, has traveled around the country looking to raise money and build support for his presidential campaign-to-be.
Late last week, Pawlenty traveled to Iowa, where he is working to make a big splash in the first-in-the-nation caucuses, to meet with potential voters. He returns to his home state of Minnesota on Wednesday to hold a large fundraising event after meeting big GOP donors in various cities over the past few months.
Pawlenty has already hired a full staff in Iowa in addition to naming Whitaker to run his volunteer steering committee. The former governor also has a steering committee formed in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state.
Derserving one another, for sure. Mediocrity and sleaze, hand in glove:
Enough to make one puke.
Yes, Whitaker and Pawlenty each are naked opportunists, and yes, aside from that tie years ago there is no other, yet we cannot leave that link without video amusement (all the cliche content is there, except for the slogan: "Make America Great Again.") Whitaker was not one to let the immediately shown Pawlenty unpresidential unpopularity quash his own payday opportunity, and accordingly
Is Mike Pence Loyal? The question is not loyal to his ambitions, that is beyond reasonable doubt, but loyal to the Trumpster? And, who would ask? Well, NYT on Nov. 16 led others in reporting it was Trump asking staffers the question; this link; with excerpted dramatic reading interlaced with commentary on YouTube, here.
Beyond the YouTube op-ed item focus, NYT wrote:
But some Trump advisers, primarily outside the White House, have suggested to him that while Mr. Pence remains loyal, he may have used up his utility. These advisers argue that Mr. Trump has forged his own relationship with evangelical voters, and that what he might benefit from more is a running mate who could help him with female voters, who disapprove of him in large numbers.
Others close to the president believe that asking about Mr. Pence’s loyalty is a proxy for asking about whether the vice president’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, is trustworthy. Mr. Trump has been considering making Mr. Ayers the White House chief of staff to replace John F. Kelly, the retired Marine general — a decision several White House officials say has been with the encouragement of his adult children. But the president has put off making a decision for now.
The conversations were described in interviews with nearly a dozen White House aides and others close to Mr. Trump. [...]
Veterans of previous White Houses described this type of questioning as a frequent occurrence before a re-election campaign begins in earnest.
“The idea of changing a ticket has been discussed by at least some aides in every White House and it almost never happens,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director for President Barack Obama.
[...] In 2012, Mr. Obama’s aides briefly talked about replacing Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. with Hillary Clinton for the president’s re-election effort.
[...] The two men [Trump and Pence] speak daily, sometimes multiple times. But some of Mr. Trump’s advisers believe that the dynamic between the president and Mr. Pence has changed in the first two years of Mr. Trump’s term, part of a pattern in many of Mr. Trump’s relationships.
Some of Mr. Trump’s outside advisers have mentioned Nikki R. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, a post she plans to leave at the end of the year, and former governor of South Carolina, as a potential running mate. Ms. Haley is close with Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Mr. Trump gave her an unusually warm send-off in the Oval Office when she announced she was leaving the United Nations job in September.
And Ms. Haley on the ticket might help Mr. Trump win back the support of women, who voted for Democratic candidates in large numbers in the midterm elections.
[...] Some of Mr. Trump’s evangelical supporters feel particularly strongly that making a change would be a mistake.
[...] But some who have studied evangelical voters and their political activity say losing Mr. Pence wouldn’t necessarily be a disaster.
Robert P. Jones, the chief executive of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, said that the president faced an “at best moderate risk” if he were to drop Mr. Pence from the ticket.
Mr. Jones said that while Mr. Pence may have served as a validating figure for white evangelicals, recent research showed that 7 out of 10 white evangelicals who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party would prefer Mr. Trump over any alternative Republican candidate in 2020.
A third of white evangelicals who support Trump, Mr. Jones said, indicated there was virtually nothing the president could do to shake their trust — which theoretically includes selecting a new running mate.
[links in original omitted] They got their judges etc., so they trust Trump; making Pence as vestigial as the human appendix. Yet, would Nikki Haley do it? She does have self respect. Elsewhere, as to the Ayers/proxy idea, NYT published:
As for the chief of staff role, Mr. Ayers is favored by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka Trump, both of whom serve as West Wing advisers. Mr. Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has told friends he sees Mr. Ayers as “competent,” a stamp the Trump family has not always affixed to people working for their father.
Mr. Ayers did not travel as originally planned with Mr. Pence on his official trip to Asia this week, two White House officials said. And another prospective chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who already leads two agencies and who had been seen as campaigning for the West Wing job, has told aides he is no longer interested.
Several people working in the White House who are not among the Trump family members or their allies have expressed concern to the president about putting Mr. Ayers in that role, and have warned that some staff members might quit because of it.
Mr. Trump hates interpersonal confrontation, and he often lets aides he does not like remain in their positions for uncomfortably long times, meaning changes could still be weeks away, the people close to the president cautioned. And Mr. Ayers’s name has been mentioned as a Kelly successor before, only to disappear as Mr. Kelly has remained in his post.
Further kicking the dump-Pence can down the road; The Atlantic, Business Insider, The Post and Courier, Raw Story, and Newsweek; but compare, Washington Times, and Breitbart.
As to Ayers and Pence and access; here and here. Godly men with earthly ties?
The one Whitaker-related question left begging was whether Pence and/or McGann and Pence had been tasked with responsibility for vetting Whitaker prior to Trump acting on an instinct to advance the career of a clown who went on TV to show he was Trump's owned clown? There seems to have been inadequate vetting, a point made between Sam Seder and Digby in the video cited at the opening of this post.