Washington - Many assume Matthew G. Whitaker was chosen as acting attorney general because he criticized the Russia probe, said he would have indicted Hillary Clinton and otherwise looks like a die-hard Trump loyalist.
Whitaker, after all, was involved with a Miami-based firm that federal regulators shut down last year as an alleged scam. The firm, World Patent Marketing, promised aspiring inventors that it would patent and market their brainchildren, based on what a 17-page Federal Trade Commission complaint characterized as bogus "success stories" and other false claims.
Among the many, many ways this company hoodwinked customers, according to the FTC complaint: It claimed its customers' inventions were sold in "big box" stores such as Walmart and Target, when in fact none were; it claimed it owned a manufacturing plant in China, though no such plant existed; and it said its board of advisers ("Invention Team Advisory Board") personally reviewed customers' invention ideas, when the board did no such thing.