Whitaker is loyal to Trump. That’s refreshing.

Since Donald Trump fired Jeff Sessions and announced that Matthew Whitaker would assume leadership of the Justice Department as acting attorney general, Whitaker has faced a barrage of unjust criticism from the mainstream media, the left, and the NeverTrump right. The opposition stems not from principle but from ideology, and it is yet another front of the resistance.

The main complaint lodged against the acting attorney general is that Whitaker is a Trump loyalist: During his tenure as Sessions’ chief of staff, Whitaker reportedly served as a “balm” between the Justice Department and the president, acting as the president’s “eyes and ears” within what Trump viewed “an enemy institution.”

The loyalist charge is vague. And critics are exploiting this ambiguity by portraying Trump’s trust in Whitaker as nefarious. But there is nothing nefarious about the (acting) attorney general serving the president. It is only by suggesting that solidarity with Trump means obstructing justice that “loyalist” becomes a pejorative.

The irony here is rich. Whitaker is taken to task for being trustworthy, while critics ignore the real scandal — the disloyalty apparently pervasive in the Justice Department and elsewhere in the administration.

The proof came early: Within two weeks of Trump’s inauguration, acting attorney general and Obama administration holdover Sally Yates directed Justice attorneys not to defend the president’s travel ban, forcing Trump to fire her. Since then, congressional investigations, Freedom of Information Act requests and dedicated work by Sessions have exposed additional efforts by Justice and FBI career employees to undermine the president. And just two months ago a senior official in the Trump administration claimed anonymously in the New York Times that “many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda.”

While Trump’s opponents may cheer such insubordination, our country suffers when unknown bureaucrats seek to thwart the agenda of the man freely chosen by voters to serve as our president. Whitaker’s fidelity to Trump may be striking in contrast to the status quo in the D.C. swamp, but it is most assuredly not a stain on the acting attorney general’s credentials or character.

Nor does Whitaker’s loyalty to the president require him to recuse from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Here, it is helpful to recall why former Attorney General Sessions recused: It was not because of Sessions’ solidarity with the president, but because during the 2016 campaign Sessions had spoken with Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. While Sessions was a sitting senator at the time and said there was nothing improper about his conversation, he nonetheless stepped back and turned the reins over to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Critics want Whitaker to leave the matter in Rosenstein’s hands and recuse from any oversight of Mueller. There is no basis to demand this. Unlike the situation with Sessions, there is no connection between Whitaker and Russia involving the 2016 campaign. And the few innocuous public comments Whitaker made concerning Mueller’s investigation are insufficient to justify recusal.

Margot Cleveland is a lawyer and an adjunct instructor at the University of Notre Dame.