Matthew Whitaker, acting U.S. attorney general during the Trump administration, said that current Attorney General Merrick Garland has needlessly placed himself in a proverbial "box," when overseeing the separate disputes over classified documents involving former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden.
If Garland had been more impartial, and more patient with an ordeal that now includes former Vice President Mike Pence, Whitaker believes the Department of Justice wouldn't be in this political mess of appointing special counsels to each case.
"I've sat at that chair and made similar decisions. Merrick Garland is a disaster. Let's just admit he doesn't know what he's doing, and he has bad people giving him bad advice," Whitaker told Newsmax on Sunday morning, while appearing on "Wake Up America Weekend" with hosts Carl Higbie and Tom Basile.
Whitaker similarly maintains that New York Attorney General Letitia James has reached the point of no return with her state's $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump — something she had promised to the progressive wing of New York's Democratic Party before taking office, or even personally investigating the Trump Organization.
"This is just a continuation of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.' The government is triggered by Donald Trump. They want to destroy him, to get him off the map, to prevent him from running for president again. And the reason is ... because he was so effective," said Whitaker.
Democrats can argue about Trump's personality, "but what you can't argue against was his policies ... which made the American people more prosperous and ultimately what worked" in this country, said Whitaker, while adding that Trump "brought conservative ideology to the federal government, and it worked splendidly. The 'mean tweets' are what people claimed to be the problem."
In his dispute with New York's attorney general office, Trump opted to plead the Fifth Amendment, a strategy Whitaker would have recommended as well.
"Obviously, our Founding Fathers were genius with fundamental rights. It's all about the government vs. the individual — and why you need the Fifth Amendment when you have the state's attorney general going after you," said Whitaker. "It's why you can't be compelled to testify against yourself. It's basic Liberty 101."
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
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