What to know about Matthew Whitaker, Trump’s pick to be America’s ambassador to NATO

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has tapped former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker as U.S. ambassador to NATO, set to make him the nation’s representative to a bedrock Western alliance that the president-elect has repeatedly relished criticizing. Whitaker has a legal and criminal justice background, rather than one focused on foreign policy and national security, yet is poised to take over an important position for U.S. global affairs. Whitaker served as acting attorney general for three months beginning in late 2018. A former University of Iowa football player, he was part of the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a Florida company that a federal judge shut down in 2017 and fined almost $26 million.