Will Matthew Whitaker's Support of Special Toilets Help Him as Ambassador to NATO?

The hits keep on coming as President-elect Donald Trump has chosen lawyer and lobbyist Matthew Whitaker to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO. According to the Associated Press, Trump described Whitaker as a "strong warrior and loyal patriot" who "will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended." The 47th president also assured Americans that Whitaker will "strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability."

There are a lot of skills needed to keep the peace, so to speak, and one of them is undoubtedly being able to look at a problem from different angles. One could say a creative, inventive mind is necessary for a job like this. Thankfully, Whitaker is nothing if not innovative. This is the man who, per a congressional report, loves a specific kind of toilet. Let's get into it and by "it," we do not mean a toilet.

In November 2018, Whitaker replaced Jeff Sessions as acting attorney general. This prompted a deep dive into Whitaker's life and career, which is how we learned he was previously the board member of a company called World Patent Marketing (WPM). This was picked up by a piece in Mother Jones that reported WPM's 2014 marketing launch of a "MASCULINE TOILET" that "boasted a specially designed bowl to help 'well-endowed men' avoid unwanted contact with porcelain or water."

The firm's press release stated that the "average male genitalia is between 5 inches and 6 inches [long]" but this toilet was "designed for those of us who measure longer than that." Please take note of the "us" part and the implication that everyone at WPM is hashtag blessed. In this very same press release, it was announced that Whitaker was joining the company's advisory board. That was not a joke. Sorry, we meant to write this is not potty humor.

A promotional video from World Patent Marketing claimed that "DNA evidence collected in 2013 proves that Bigfoot does exist," per Syracuse.com. Evidently, this was meant to bolster sales of the company's Sasquatch dolls as well as a celebrity event titled "You Have Been Squatched!"

In order to raise money for a "theoretical time travel commodity tied directly to the price of Bitcoin," WPM claimed time travel was absolutely possible within a decade. Travel X was touted as an "investment vehicle" that promised to help users "relive moments from your past" or "visit your future."

In March 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged WPM with "deceiving consumers and suppressing complaints about the company by using threats of criminal prosecution against dissatisfied customers." The company was described as an "invention-promotion scam" that "promised to promote people’s inventions and took thousands of dollars, but provided almost no service in return."

They would string customers along for months, and in some cases years, which often left their customers in debt. The FTC also alleged that WPM used threats of legal action to discourage customers from "publishing truthful or non-defamatory negative reviews about the defendants and their services." This was settled in early 2018, reported The Washington Post, for $25 million. Whitaker was not named in this complaint and claimed to have no knowledge of any wrongdoing.