Note that Whitaker has claimed to be unaware of the company’s fraudulent practices, but is alleged on at least two occasions to have threatened people who had (accurately) called it a scam, and invoked his status as a former US attorney in doing so.
-
Show this thread
-
Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but it does not seem credible that someone could have an insider view of WPM & not realize the outfit was a sham. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/he-was-yelling-whitaker-pushed-back-against-early-fraud-complaints-about-company-he-advised/2018/11/14/53e5cbc6-e78f-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html …
1 reply 34 retweets 109 likesShow this thread -
The FTC complaint against WPM is worth reading. The fraud here was, shall we say, not subtle. It beggars belief that an attorney could have been as involved with them as Whitaker was & not realize what was going on. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/world_patent_marketing_-_amended_complaint.pdf …
2 replies 49 retweets 104 likesShow this thread -
Among other things, the FTC says: WPM claimed a Chinese manufacturing branch that did not exist. None of its customers ultimately made money. It falsely claimed its advisory board (on which Whitaker sat) reviewed client proposals.
1 reply 24 retweets 80 likesShow this thread -
Whitaker made legal threats against people who complained about these practices. It is simply not possible for him to have been unaware what kind of outfit he was cashing checks from.
1 reply 29 retweets 87 likesShow this thread -
If all he got from WPF was the $10k reported, incidentally, he sold himself rather cheaply. I would not be surprised if that eventually proves to be an incomplete accounting.
1 reply 17 retweets 72 likesShow this thread -
Final note: The FTC complaint detailing WPM’s fraudulent business model was filed in March 2017, six months before Whitaker took the job as Sessions’ chief of staff. His connection to the company was plastered all over their website. It was not a secret.
1 reply 23 retweets 79 likesShow this thread -
It should raise alarm bells that his participation in an egregiously fraudulent enterprise—one FTC had already exposed at the time of his hiring—was apparently no obstacle to being granted such a senior post at DOJ.
1 reply 27 retweets 85 likesShow this thread -
(Let alone acting AG, but I hope that goes without saying...)
2 replies 8 retweets 59 likesShow this thread -
Two obvious questions: (1) Were strings pulled to get him through background check? Because this seems like the sort of thing that would normally hold up a hire & security clearance, at the very least. (2) Is this an isolated case, or just the one we’re catching?
4 replies 22 retweets 93 likesShow this thread
To my knowledge we never learned whether Kushner has a TS (i.e. WH makes final decision) or TS/SCI (DNI or somewhere around that make determination). But that case certainly sounded suspicious.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.