Even for Washington, the fight over online gambling has been unusually shady By Rachel M. Cohen and Ryan Grim, The Intercept February 15, 2019 at 3:26 pm SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C., talked to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “several times” about changing the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law that banned interstate betting, he told The Intercept. A 2011 Justice Department analysis of that law effectively legalized online gambling; last month, the department reversed that opinion. “I’ve been pushing this from the day it came out under the Obama administration,” Graham said. “Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein and myself have been asking for them to change this absurd interpretation because it leads to the Wild Wild West.” Asked whether he’d spoken to then-Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who had recused himself from the issue, about it, Graham, in a brief interview in the Capitol, said, “I don’t know.” (On Thursday, the Senate confirmed William Barr as attorney general, replacing Whitaker.)
