UPDATE (12-21-18): Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd has sent a letter to House Majority Leader Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explaining why Whitaker has chosen not to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation.
In summary, it says Whitaker decided he doesn't have any conflicts of interest, doesn't want to be the first to recuse due to the appearance of bias, hasn't spoken out against the probe for a while now, thinks Mueller is a good man, and isn't aware of any reason to fire him.
An excerpt:
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker never asked for a real DOJ ethics review of whether he should recuse himself from the Russia investigation given his past public remarks against Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe, but when a senior ethics official suggested he do so "out of an abundance of caution," Whitaker's own hand-picked advisors told him to ignore the advice.
Within days of the president’s announcement in early November that he had put Whitaker in the job on a temporary basis, Whitaker tapped a veteran U.S. attorney to become part of a four-person team of advisers on his new job, including the question of whether he should recuse from Mueller’s investigation because of his past statements regarding that probe, and his friendship with one of its witnesses, according to a senior Justice Department official.
Whitaker never asked Justice Department ethics officials for a recommendation, nor did he receive a formal recommendation, this official said.
However, after Whitaker met repeatedly with ethics officials to discuss the facts and the issues under consideration, a senior ethics official told the group of advisers on Tuesday that it was a “close call,” but Whitaker should recuse to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the official said. Whitaker was not present at that meeting, the official said.
Those four advisers, however, disagreed with the ethics determination, and recommended to Whitaker the next day not to recuse, saying there was no precedent for doing so, and doing so now could create a bad precedent for future attorneys general.
Whitaker’s advisors ... recommended to him Wednesday that he not recuse himself because the decision was a close one, and they felt he should not put himself in the position of being the first attorney general to step aside from a case over the appearance of a conflict.
Whitaker took his team's recommendation ... and is sending a letter to congressional lawmakers to address the matter.
(...)
Typically, ethics officials make recommendations that Justice Department employees are expected to follow, but the final decision on whether to recuse over an appearance of a conflict of interest was always Whitaker’s to make, according to past and current officials.
Whitaker has decided not to recuse from the Mueller case, and a letter to that effect is expected to be sent to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), possibly later Thursday.
So far, Whitaker has not received any briefings on the Mueller investigation, but he may at some point, the senior Justice Department official said.
(...)
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said the Justice Department’s ethics opinion should be shared with Congress, adding, “DOJ officials must avoid not only actual impropriety but the appearance of impropriety.”
(...)
The ethics controversy surrounding Whitaker could also have consequences for his chosen successor, Barr.
Now in private practice, Barr has similarly made public comments that are skeptical of Mueller, and this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a memo he sent to the Justice Department criticizing the special counsel for a “fatally misconceived” legal theory of how Trump may have obstructed justice.
(...)
Democrats and others expressed alarm about Whitaker’s past views, fearful he might stifle Mueller’s work. The special counsel regulations call for him, as acting attorney general, to be notified of significant events in the probe, and give him the ability to veto steps he considered “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.” If he does that, though, he would be required to notify Congress at the end of the case.
Last month, the special counsel’s office notified Whitaker in advance that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was going to plead guilty to lying to Congress about a possible Trump business project in Moscow.
Asked about his own role in the Mueller probe at a news conference Thursday, [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein said, “We’ve continued to manage the investigation as we have in the past, and it’s being handled appropriately.”
AP source: Whitaker doesn’t need to recuse from Russia probe (AP)
Whitaker will not recuse himself from Russia probe, despite ethics advice that he should (LA Times)