Cont: Mueller Investigation pt3

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Stacko said:
Is there even a precedent?
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The latest Opening Arguments podcast has a segment on this.

My recollection is that, yes, there is precedent. The president does have the authority to select anyone on an interim basis and without confirmation given exigent circumstances. Like an emergency.

What the courts would have to decide is whether exigent circumstances exist, given that the vacancy was due to the President’s own actions, and so fully anticipated.

I think. The episode covers it in a fair amount of detail.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
The latest Opening Arguments podcast has a segment on this.

My recollection is that, yes, there is precedent. The president does have the authority to select anyone on an interim basis and without confirmation given exigent circumstances. Like an emergency.

What the courts would have to decide is whether exigent circumstances exist, given that the vacancy was due to the President’s own actions, and so fully anticipated.

I think. The episode covers it in a fair amount of detail.
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The issue here is that there is a later law that applies specifically to acting AGs, and that law requires prior Senate approval, if I understand correctly.

No link, sorry, but it occurred in an article about Maryland's lawsuit regarding Whitaker.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Why doesn't the Senate just vote on the nom?
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I am not an expert, but... that would require actually nominating the guy in the first place, rather than arbitrarily putting him in the spot. Separately, I don't actually have faith that the Republicans would... do their job this time without significant pressure from their base. That's a notably different kind of issue, though.
 
Aridas said:
I am not an expert, but... that would require actually nominating the guy in the first place, rather than arbitrarily putting him in the spot. Separately, I don't actually have faith that the Republicans would... do their job this time without significant pressure from their base. That's a notably different kind of issue, though.
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I wonder how many people arrested by the DOJ during this time will sue on the grounds that the AG has no authority?
 
phiwum said:
I think this is just plain false. He is acting AG.
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The Associate Attorney General has been "acting" in that job for almost 2 years. "Acting" does not necessarily mean "for a very limited time," though it could mean "until he's ruined the Mueller investigation."
 
P.J. Denyer said:
That's horrible, hilarious and undeniably apt. You're a sick, sick genius.
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That's why I referred to as a real world Gish Gallop because it basically creates the same paradox.

Any of us with brains could sit here and without thinking rattle off a dozen things to be mad/worried at Trump for off the top of our heads without even trying.

But it's impossible to focus on any one thing, to create a priority. I guarantee you none of us would agree on what the "worst" thing Trump has done or what he's doing that's the biggest problem we should focus on.

If anything that's the true brilliance of Trump. He knows nothing he does matters because you're always going to be shocked at the next thing he does before you have time to do anything about the thing he's doing know. And he knows how to play the outrage culture like a fiddle.

That's why he's not slowing down. He knows the second he pauses and his opponents gets a chance to catch their breath and focus on anything one single thing he's doing for more than a few days (hours most of the time) it's over.
 
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Babbylonian said:
The Associate Attorney General has been "acting" in that job for almost 2 years. "Acting" does not necessarily mean "for a very limited time," though it could mean "until he's ruined the Mueller investigation."
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You'll have to give me a cite. When I look up "associate attorney general", I find Jesse Panuccio, who was acting for two months (beginning Feb. 2017) and has since assumed the office. WP's article on Panuccio is weird, because it shows a successor who seems to have preceded him. I'll drop that line, since I don't know for sure whether he is "acting" or not.

In any case, is associate AG a Senate-confirmed position? If not, the rules may well be different. AG requires Senate confirmation and I can't believe that someone can be acting AG indefinitely (and that is not what I hear from the news).

As I understand it, Whitaker can be acting for somewhat over 200 days. It is nonsense to think that "acting" AGs can be acting without congressional oversight with no limit.

But, prove me wrong, if you have evidence to the contrary. Should be hard to do so, since if this were the case, Senate confirmation would be meaningless. Just appoint someone when the Senate is out of session and leave them "acting" for the rest of the term.

ETA2: The position does require confirmation, but this page explains how I misread the Panuccio page. He was acting for a while, was replaced by Brand and has since replaced Brand, again as acting associate AG. He has not been acting associate AG for nearly two years. He was for two months, and currently since February (so, nine months so far -- certainly a long time).
 
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phiwum said:
You'll have to give me a cite. When I look up "associate attorney general", I find Jesse Panuccio, who was acting for two months (beginning Feb. 2017) and has since assumed the office.

As I understand it, Whitaker can be acting for somewhat over 200 days. It is nonsense to think that "acting" AGs can be acting without congressional oversight with no limit.

But, prove me wrong, if you have evidence to the contrary. Should be hard to do so, since if this were the case, Senate confirmation would be meaningless. Just appoint someone when the Senate is out of session and leave them "acting" for the rest of the term.
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Wikipedia continues to list him as "acting" and I can find nothing about a senate confirmation hearing.

Here are a few links from the Department of Justice website in which he is referred to as "Acting Associate Attorney General." The earliest is from March 2018 and the latest is from September.

If I was wrong about the 2 years, I'm sorry, but the bottom line is that he's still not confirmed by the Senate and thus, like Whitaker, probably should not be holding his current job since the Senate has been in session for a very long time.
 
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Babbylonian said:
Wikipedia continues to list him as "acting" and I can find nothing about a senate confirmation hearing.

Here are a few links from the Department of Justice website in which he is referred to as "Acting Associate Attorney General." The earliest is from March 2018 and the latest is from September.
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Quite right, he is acting, but he has not been acting for nearly two years. He has been acting for nine months. See my recently edited post above.

That's a long time. It's not proof that one can be "acting" without limit in a Senate-confirmed position, but it's a long damned time.
 
According to the NY Post, Whitaker could hold the office as acting AG until June at the latest.

The Post is not my go-to source, but it's the first one that came up.

I also found this:
Whitaker can serve as acting AG for 210 days, though the clock resets once Trump nominates someone to serve in the position permanently.
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That's the number I heard on NPR or PBS, but this quote comes from GoveExec.com, a site I can't vouch for. I don't know it.
 
phiwum said:
According to the NY Post, Whitaker could hold the office as acting AG until June at the latest.

The Post is not my go-to source, but it's the first one that came up.

I also found this:

That's the number I heard on NPR or PBS, but this quote comes from GoveExec.com, a site I can't vouch for. I don't know it.
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This is only true if his appointment was made in good faith. Given that the Senate is in session and is available to consider appointments, and in the absence of an emergency situation, it's highly questionable whether someone can assume the office without going through the standard constitutional procedure, especially given that there is a Senate-confirmed deputy in place.

Had Trump waited until this session of Congress had concluded and then appointed Whitaker, it would have still been a dodgy move but it would have been defensible. As it is, the only emergency condition I see is that there is a special prosecutor investigating the President...
 
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Babbylonian said:
This is only true if his appointment was made in good faith. Given that the Senate is in session and is available to consider appointments, and in the absence of an emergency situation, it's highly questionable whether someone can assume the office without going through the standard constitutional procedure, especially given that there is a Senate-confirmed deputy in place.

Had Trump waited until this session of Congress had concluded and then appointed Whitaker, it would have still been a dodgy move but it would have been defensible. As it is, the only emergency condition I see is that there is a special prosecutor investigating the President...
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I'm not claiming that the appointment is legal. We'll see about that in the courts.

I'm just saying that there is a limited time that one can be acting AG.
 
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