Trump Sends Christian Crusader to NATO
Matt Whitaker has a history of opposing LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights
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President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to NATO has a record of opposing LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights in the name of Christianity.
His nomination comes as a network of U.S. evangelicals is already pushing Ukraine to become a European “Bible Belt” in return for desperately needed aid. As I’ve reported, there were already signs they’re succeeding.
Trump on Wednesday announced he intends to nominate former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to serve as the American ambassador to NATO. Whitaker’s arrival would make him Trump’s leading representative in talks on Ukraine, Russia, and NATO itself.
Although Whitaker doesn’t have the sex scandals common to so many Trump nominees, he does share religious extremism with a number of them.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), for instance, is Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of the State Department. Rubio is an insider of the Fellowship Foundation, and as I revealed, worked with other insiders to destroy a UN anti-corruption task force before it could take on Guatemala’s evangelical president.
The Fellowship sent Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) to Uganda to back the president there in the face of international blowback over the nation’s new LGBTQ+ death penalty. The Fellowship’s point man in Ukraine, who has ties to Rubio, was credited by American evangelicals with getting House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to drop his opposition to aid for Ukraine.
The National Prayer Breakfast, which The Fellowship runs, figured prominently in the story of Russia’s right-wing networking. Breakfast guest Maria Butina was ultimately arrested and convicted for illegally operating as a Russian agent.
Whitaker’s nomination came as a surprise to many, given his total lack of experience with foreign affairs and the military. He had been seen as a potential attorney general.
But Rod Rosenstein, Whitaker’s deputy at the Justice Department may have shed some light on why Whitaker didn’t get it. “Matt didn’t drop cases against political allies, and he didn’t pursue unwarranted investigations of political opponents,” Rosenstein said.
Trump’s announcement of Whitaker referred to him as a “loyal Patriot.” As NATO ambassador, Whitaker’s goals may align more closely with Trump’s, and loyalty may present less of an ethical quandary for Whitaker, assuming that’s even a concern.
Trump wants concessions from Ukraine in order to end the war. Whitaker, a foe of LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, likely does, too.
As I reported earlier this year, The Fellowship’s Ukrainian representative, Pavlo Unguryan, lobbied for U.S. aid by telling evangelical audiences they’d get to shape Ukraine’s future. Specifically, as a “Bible Belt” oasis in the godless European desert.
Whitaker is not known to be a Fellowship insider, but the secretive organization doesn’t disclose which Washington figures frequent its halls and prayer sessions. And Whitaker does have ties to two towering figures in Fellowship history.
He served as chief of staff to Trump’s then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Author and journalist Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the definitive works on The Fellowship, calls Sessions a “longtime associate.”
Then there’s former Attorney General Ed Meese. His Fellowship footprint is enormous and has deepened with time.
When Meese ran Pres. Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department, he corresponded with Fellowship leader Doug Coe about how the government could create faith-based remedies for poverty.
Sharlet wrote that Meese routinely hosted prayer sessions at The Fellowship’s mansion, The Cedars. He also served as a Fellowship facilitator, building networks in Washington.
Although no longer officially anything, Meese remained unofficially busy. He helped shepherd Pres. George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, through the Senate.
As Sharlet notes, Meese played a large role in promulgating the legal concept of originalism. Judges, by Meese’s reasoning, could deny LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights on the grounds that the founding fathers would have agreed, which is both entirely unknowable and not a principle that the founders themselves established.
Whitaker describes Meese as “a friend and mentor for me.” When did that first happen? “When I was chief of staff.” For Sessions.
That was Whitaker speaking at a Heritage Foundation2 event about the right’s vision of religious freedom.
One month later, Whitaker was at The Fellowship’s 2019 National Prayer Breakfast. (Internal Fellowship records I obtained for the 2015, 2016, and 2018 NPB don’t indicate Whitaker was there those years.)
Even without whatever Fellowship connections Whitaker has, he’s on board with the revisionist vision of religious freedom that animates many Fellowship leaders. It’s a vision especially hostile to women and LGBTQ+ people.
In 2007, Whitaker prosecuted a gay Democratic politician. As Ken Klippenstein and I wrote, Whitaker lost the case even though federal prosecutors almost always win convictions.
The prosecution was so egregious, it drew attention from the Des Moines Register.
Also while Whitaker was working for the Justice Department of Pres. George W. Bush, the administration pressured prosecutors to undertake politically motivated cases.
As Ken and I noted in our article, Bush White House aides rated prosecutors by loyalty. The rating document was later obtained by congressional investigators. But the ranking for Iowa’s southern district, Whitaker’s, was redacted before release.
That’s an issue Senate Democrats could revisit — along with releasing the unredacted rankings — if there’s a confirmation hearing for Whitaker. They also have a rare opportunity to question Whitaker about his views on “religious freedom.”
Most people think of religious freedom as freedom from persecution. But, like Fellowship leaders, Whitaker sees religious freedom as an exemption from laws that apply to other people.
At that 2019 Heritage event, for instance, Whitaker described religious freedom as the right of Christians to deny health-care coverage for employees on medical issues related to sex and reproduction. Especially, but not exclusively, LGBTQ+ sex and the right not to reproduce.
These are not rights that other companies have. Whitaker and other right-wing Christians call it a violation of religious freedom to force Christians to obey laws they don’t believe their religion would like.
The Bible, of course, explicitly prohibits lots of things Christian business people do, such as charge interest. It says nothing, however, about employee health-care plans.
But the definition of “religious freedom,” along with LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, are very much key — albeit undercovered — issues in Ukraine right now.
I’ve reported at some length on how The Fellowship’s Ukrainian leader, former Member of Parliament Pavlo Unguryan, has wooed American support by dangling the prospect of them shaping Ukraine’s future.
Prior to Russia’s invasion, Unguryan was best known as both the leader of Ukraine’s prayer breakfast and its most prominent crusader against LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights.
The website for Unguryan’s parliamentary group used to list its main activities as “organizing the [Ukraine] National Prayer Breakfast [and] protection of the institution of family and marriage as the basis of society.”
Just prior to convincing Johnson to arm Ukraine, Unguryan got Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to host the National Prayer Breakfast for the first time.
The breakfast came a couple months after Johnson gave Ukraine its $61 billion. As promised, Zelenskyy made the prayer breakfast an official event and even hosted it.
As far as I could tell, it was the first time Zelenskyy used language redolent of evangelical code for opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. “We are defending,” Zelenskyy said, “the values that are close to every normal person — to all who respect life, who cherish the family.”
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I don't remember where I picked this up:
Judicial "originalism" is—since they already wear black robes—just a few candles and a pentacle short of necromancy.