NYTimes: Trump's Appointment of the Acting Attorney General Is Unconstitutional

[spanone]

The president is evading the requirement to seek the Senate’s advice and consent for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and the person who will oversee the Mueller investigation.

Matthew Whitaker, named acting attorney general on Wednesday after the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions, was Mr. Sessions's chief of staff.CreditCreditCharlie Neibergall/Associated Press

What now seems an eternity ago, the conservative law professor Steven Calabresi published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in May arguing that Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional. His article got a lot of attention, and it wasn’t long before President Trump picked up the argument, tweeting that “the Appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”

Professor Calabresi’s article was based on the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. Under that provision, so-called principal officers of the United States must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate under its “Advice and Consent” powers.
He argued that Mr. Mueller was a principal officer because he is exercising significant law enforcement authority and that since he has not been confirmed by the Senate, his appointment was unconstitutional. As one of us argued at the time, he was wrong. What makes an officer a principal officer is that he or she reports only to the president. No one else in government is that person’s boss. But Mr. Mueller reports to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. So, Mr. Mueller is what is known as an inferior officer, not a principal one, and his appointment without Senate approval was valid.

But Professor Calabresi and the president were right about the core principle. A principal officer must be confirmed by the Senate. And that has a very, very significant consequence today

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/opinion/trump-attorney-general-sessions-unconstitutional.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[gratuitous]

1. Another exercise of The Emperor Trump Doctrine

"Who's going to stop me?"

[libdem4life]

2. Cuff 'im, Dano. I wish. Traitor and POS. n/t

[unblock]

3. Called it!

But it remains to be seen if anything will come of it.

Will someone challenge it? Rosenstein certainly has standing, but I can't see him doing it as it would given Donnie cover to fire him.

[Guppy]

4. Federalist Society

are a bunch of weirdos. Any group that would make Ted Cruz a rock star is wacko.

[BruceWane]

5. Note the authors

"By Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III"

Kellyanne's hubby. Definitely not the first public anti-Trump opinion from him, either.

[spanone]

7. Yep, interesting family dynamic, ya think?

👍🏼

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. This is not an NYT editorial, it's by Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III.

Which doesn't mean it's not valid. Your headline made me think that the NYT, as an institution, had run an editorial saying this. Instead it's simply an op-ed by two informed people.

[spanone]

8. It's an editorial that appears in the New York Times.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. An editorial is written in the newspaper's institutional voice, has no byline, and runs on the

editorial page of the hard copy of the paper. A commentary has a byline and runs opposite the editorial page, hence the phrase "op-ed." This is the latter.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. How do recess appointments fit into this scenario

That seems to be the argument the cons are using to defend Whitaker’s appointment.

Can anyone clarify?

[Hortensis]

10. Btw, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell spent 25 years as

a senior senatorial staffer, and his show is especially interesting when attention shifts to congress.

[Roland99]

12. This should be about the only topic of discussion until he steps down!!

[spanone]

13. trump's hand picked stooge needs to recuse himself...

maybe he doesn't want to go to jail for trump...like John Mitchell

On February 21, 1975, Mitchell, who was represented by the criminal defense attorney William G. Hundley, was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury and sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up, which he dubbed the "White House horrors." As a result of the conviction, Mitchell was disbarred from the practice of law in New York.[52] The sentence was later reduced to one to four years by United States district court Judge John J. Sirica. Mitchell served only 19 months of his sentence at Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery (in Maxwell Air Force Base) in Montgomery, Alabama, a minimum-security prison, before being released on parole for medical reasons.[53]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Mitchell

[Roland99]

14. He won't recuse. Not a chance

Listened to some audio clips on the way home

He sounds like and comes off like some guy running a right wing conspiracy theory website