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From arguing federal judges should be Christian to being involved in a scam shut down by the FTC, here's a full timeline of acting AG Matthew Whitaker's controversial past

From arguing federal judges should be Christian to being involved in a scam shut down by the FTC, here's a full timeline of acting AG Matthew Whitaker's controversial past

In 2014, Whitaker said one of the worst Supreme Court decisions was Marbury v. Madison, the landmark 1803 case that established the principle of judicial review, allowing the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of legislation.

While running in Iowa's 2014 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Whitaker said he believed it was "very important" for federal judges to be "people of faith" and have a "Biblical worldview."

“What I know is that as long as they have that worldview, that they’ll be a good judge. And if they have a secular worldview, that ‘this is all we have here on Earth’, then I’m going to be very concerned about how they judge.”

In a statement to Business Insider, the Freedom From Religion Foundation accused Whitaker of being an "extreme Christian nationalist."

"What would a biblical view of justice look like? Capital punishment for such non-crimes as worshipping gods other than the Judeo-Christian god, blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, disobeying a parent, a woman who isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, or witchcraft," they added.

"Whitaker has joked that he prefers New Testament justice to 'Levitical' justice, but has apparently forgotten that Jesus supposedly said, in the Beatitudes no less, that he came to fulfill the law of the prophets, not to abolish it," they added.

Sources: The Guardian, Foundation For Freedom From Religion

In a 2013 candidate forum, Whitaker said states could overrule federal law such as Obamacare, "if they had the political courage."

"As a principle, it has been turned down by the courts and our federal government has not recognized it," Whitaker said.

"Now we need to remember that the states set up the federal government and not vice versa. And so the question is, do we have the political courage in the state of Iowa or some other state to nullify Obamacare and pay the consequences for that?"

Source: CNN

Whitaker has publicly disparaged the validity of the Mueller probe on multiple occasions.

“There was no collusion with the Republicans and the Trump campaign…There is not a single piece of evidence that demonstrates that the Trump campaign had any illegal or even improper relationships with Russians," he said in a 2017 talk show interview.

So far, the Mueller probe has indicted 32 people and struck plea agreements with four former Trump campaign advisors who pleaded guilty to lying about their contacts with Russians.

Source: Mother Jones

He also claimed in 2017 that the president couldn't be guilty of obstruction of justice: "There is no case for obstruction of justice because the president has all the power of the executive and delegates that to people like the FBI director and the attorney general," he said.

In that same interview, Whitaker said that Trump should have been more forceful in encouraging former FBI director James Comey to shut down his investigation into former Trump campaign advisor Michael Flynn, who ended up pleading guilty and became a cooperating witness in the Mueller probe.

“This is power that is completely vested in the president…If he wanted to he could have told Jim [Comey] to stop investigating former [Defense Intelligence Agency] director Flynn. And he didn’t…I’m sure he made his preference known. Quite frankly, he’s president of the United States. He can do that," Whitaker said.

Source: Mother Jones

In a 2017 CNN op-ed titled "Mueller's investigation has gone too far," Whitaker argued that Mueller had "crossed a red line" in examining Trump and his family's finances.

"If he were to continue to investigate the financial relationships without a broadened scope in his appointment, then this would raise serious concerns that the special counsel's investigation was a mere witch hunt," Whitaker wrote, echoing one of Trump's preferred terms for the investigation.

Source: CNN

And in a 2017 CNN interview, he described how Trump could find a loophole to effectively terminate the Mueller probe by defunding it.

"I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment," Whitaker said. "And that attorney general doesn't fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt."

Source: Business Insider

Whitaker was a paid advisory board member for a company called World Patent Marketing, which charged fees to secure patents and promote customers' innovations, like this hot tub.

Source: Slate

But the Federal Trade Commission found that WPM was, in reality, scamming its customers out of $26 million while not providing legitimate patent and marketing services, and shut it down in 2017.

“It’s really upsetting to know that guy will be attorney general,” said Ryan Masti, who claims he was scammed out of $77,000 by WPM. “It’s so offensive. It’s like a stab in the back.”

Source: Slate, Washington Post

The Wall Street Journal reported on Nov. 9 that the FBI's Miami Bureau was opening a criminal investigation into WPM.

While on the board of WPM, Whitaker used his past post as a US Attorney to threaten unhappy WPM customers against taking action against the company with “serious civil and criminal consequences,” according to court documents.

Since the FBI is a part of the DOJ, Whitaker would have to recuse himself from any part of the investigation into WPM, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Source: Wall Street Journal

And on Nov. 9, Vox reported that Whitaker was advising the White House and the DOJ simultaneously on how they could investigative Trump's baseless claims that the FBI "spied" on his 2016 campaign.

Whitaker has been described as the White House's "eyes and ears" in the Department of Justice, reportedly causing many DOJ to view him with suspicion as a staunch Trump loyalist.