1. Matthew George Whitaker was born on October 29,1969 and is an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat serving as the 26th United States permanent representative to NATO since 2025 in the second administration of President Donald Trump.
60 Facts About Matthew Whitaker
1. 2.
In 2002, Matthew Whitaker was the Republican nominee for Treasurer of Iowa, losing to incumbent Michael Fitzgerald.
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Matthew Whitaker ran in the 2014 Iowa Republican primary for the United States Senate.
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Matthew Whitaker later wrote opinion pieces and appeared on talk-radio shows and cable news as the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a conservative advocacy group.
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On February 15,2019, after Barr was sworn in on the previous day, Matthew Whitaker became a senior counselor in the Office of the Associate Attorney General; he resigned from the Justice Department on March 2,2019.
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On November 20,2024, Matthew Whitaker was announced as the nominee to serve as the United States ambassador to NATO by then- President-elect Donald Trump.
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Matthew George Whitaker was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 29,1969.
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Matthew Whitaker graduated from Ankeny High School, where he was a football star.
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Matthew Whitaker was inducted into the Iowa High School Football Hall of Fame in 2009.
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Matthew Whitaker attended the University of Iowa, receiving a bachelor's degree in communications in 1991 and Master of Business Administration and Juris Doctor degrees in 1995.
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Matthew Whitaker played in 33 games, including two bowl games, and made 21 receptions for a total of 203 yards, scoring two touchdowns.
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Matthew Whitaker graduated from college in three-and-a-half years, and played his last season of football while attending law school.
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Matthew Whitaker was sponsor GTE's 1992 GTE District VII Academic All-District selection; an Iowa football guide erroneously referred to the honor as GTE District VII Academic All-American.
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Matthew Whitaker owned or co-owned a trailer manufacturing company from 2002 to 2005 and a day-care center from 2003 to 2015.
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In 2005, the company and Matthew Whitaker were sued in Nevada for $12,000 in unpaid rental fees for supplies and equipment related to a concrete project in Las Vegas.
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Senate Democrats objecting to Bush nominees held up the nomination for four months before Matthew Whitaker was confirmed on June 15,2004.
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In July 2005, Matthew Whitaker joined neighboring US Attorneys Michael Heavican of Nebraska and Charles Larson Sr.
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Matthew Whitaker served on a regional anti-terrorism task force, which examined both international and domestic threats, and focused on prosecuting child pornography and violent crimes against children.
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In 2007, Matthew Whitaker led the investigation of four executives of the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium, a Des Moines-based job training agency, who were accused of collectively stealing more than $2 million from the agency over a three-year period.
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In 2011, Matthew Whitaker applied for an appointment to the Iowa Supreme Court but was not among the finalists whose names were submitted to the governor for selection for one of the three open seats.
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In 2014, Matthew Whitaker's partners left this partnership, and by spring of 2016, the company was unable to complete the renovations on time, and the city terminated the loan agreement.
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Matthew Whitaker was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2014 United States Senate election in Iowa.
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Matthew Whitaker came in fourth in the Republican primary, with 11,909 votes.
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Matthew Whitaker then chaired the campaign of Sam Clovis, another unsuccessful primary candidate who had been selected to run for Iowa State Treasurer.
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From 2014 to 2017, Matthew Whitaker served on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a Florida-based company billed as an invention promotion firm.
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Matthew Whitaker contributed to Whitaker's 2014 US Senate campaign, and over the three-year period from 2014 and 2017 paid Whitaker less than $17,000 for work performed.
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In one 2015 email mentioning his background as a former federal prosecutor, Matthew Whitaker told a customer that filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or "smearing" the company online could result in "serious civil and criminal consequences".
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Matthew Whitaker was later determined to have engaged in deceptive practices.
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In 2017, FTC investigators examined whether Matthew Whitaker had played any role in making threats of legal action to silence the company's critics.
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Matthew Whitaker rebuffed an FTC subpoena for records in October 2017, shortly after he had joined the Department of Justice.
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From October 2014 to September 2017, Matthew Whitaker was the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust ; he was the organization's only full-time employee in 2015 and 2016.
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The group was backed by $1 million in seed money from conservative donors, whom Matthew Whitaker declined to identify to the media.
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For four months, from June to September 2017, Matthew Whitaker was a CNN contributor.
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Matthew Whitaker retweeted a link to an article that stated that Mueller's investigation was a "lynch mob", that it should be limited, and that it should not probe into Trump's finances.
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On September 22,2017, a Justice Department official announced that Sessions was appointing Matthew Whitaker to replace Jody Hunt as his chief of staff.
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George J Terwilliger III, a former US attorney and deputy attorney general, said in his role as chief of staff, Whitaker would have dealt daily with making "substantive choices about what is important to bring to the AG".
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On December 18,2018, Matthew Whitaker signed the regulation that reclassified bump stocks as machine guns, rendering them illegal to possess under federal law.
38.
The four members of Trump's Federal Commission on School Safety were appointed in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, with Matthew Whitaker replacing Sessions in November 2018.
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In 2017, Matthew Whitaker had repeatedly criticized the Mueller investigation on television and on social media and stated that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
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In February 2019, Matthew Whitaker testified before Congress that he had not interfered in any way in the special counsel investigation, and in July 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirmed in his own testimony before Congress that there was no interference with the investigation.
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Maryland was expected to test the argument in court that Matthew Whitaker was unlawfully named acting Attorney General, and thus had no standing in the court or authority to respond to their lawsuit.
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Maryland argued that Matthew Whitaker's appointment violated the Constitution, which requires that principal officers of the United States be appointed "with the Advice and Consent of the Senate".
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Two other federal district courts issued rulings holding that Matthew Whitaker had been properly appointed to the position.
44.
On November 20,2024, Matthew Whitaker was announced as the nominee to serve as the United States ambassador to NATO by President-elect Donald Trump.
45.
Matthew Whitaker stated in a question-and-answer session during his 2014 Iowa Senatorial campaign that "the courts are supposed to be the inferior branch".
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When Matthew Whitaker later became acting Attorney General four years later, Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe commented on Matthew Whitaker's views that "the overall picture he presents would have virtually no scholarly support", and that they would be "'destabilizing' to society if he used the power of the attorney general to advance them".
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Matthew Whitaker stated during his 2014 Senate bid that he would not support "secular" judges and that judges should "have a biblical view of justice".
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Matthew Whitaker stated in 2013 he supports the right of states to nullify federal laws.
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Matthew Whitaker called the probe "political" and "the left is trying to sow this theory that essentially Russians interfered with the US election, which has been proven false".
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Matthew Whitaker published an op-ed titled, "Mueller's Investigation of Trump Is Going Too Far" in which he expressed skepticism about the investigation generally and called the appointment of Mueller "ridiculous".
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Matthew Whitaker retweeted a link to an article that referred to the investigation as a "lynch mob".
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Trump associates believe Matthew Whitaker was later hired to limit the fallout of the investigation, including by reining in any Mueller report and preventing Trump from being subpoenaed.
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In 2017, Vox writer Murray Waas, reported that an unnamed administration source claimed that Matthew Whitaker provided private advice to Trump on how the White House might pressure the Justice Department "to name a special counsel to investigate not only allegations of FBI wrongdoing but Hillary Clinton".
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An anonymous source claimed that Matthew Whitaker wanted to replace Sessions, without the latter's knowledge.
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In October 2019, after leaving the White House, Matthew Whitaker defended Trump amid the impeachment investigation into his conduct as president.
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Matthew Whitaker said there was no evidence of a crime by the President, and that "abuse of power is not a crime" in the Constitution.
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Matthew Whitaker's website previously stated that he was a "Christian who regularly attends church with his family, Matt has built a life on hard work and free enterprise"; and he stated in 2014 that "life begins at conception".
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Matthew Whitaker claimed he was not a "climate change denier" but said that the evidence is "inconclusive" and indicated he did not support regulations on carbon emissions.
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Matthew Whitaker has expressed a desire to get rid of family reunification and is against amnesty for illegal immigrants.
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Matthew Whitaker supported repealing the Affordable Care Act in his 2014 Senate campaign.