Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Trump has just made an unconstitutional appointment.

Judge Andrew Napolitano says that assigning Matthew Whitaker as Acting AG is illegal

Today Fox’s not-quite-so-crazy on air Judge, Anthony Napolitano, stated that the selection of Jeff Session’s former chief of staff Matthew Whitaker as Acting AG may in fact be illegal because he was never confirmed by the Senate.

“Under the law, the person running the Department of Justice must have been approved by the United States Senate for some previous position. Even on an interim post,” Napolitano said.

Napolitano continued saying that next in line for the position is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

“[Whitaker] was not confirmed by the United States Senate for a leadership position at the Justice Department. The White House will have to work this out. Who has been confirmed and who’s next in line? Deputy attorney general Rosenstein,” he said.

Even if you disagree with Napolitano and feel that as a recess appointment Whitaker can at least serve until the beginning of the new Congress in January, he would still have a problem under the Presidential Vacancies Act to serve up to 210 days because now former AG Sessions specifically stated that he didn’t resign, he was asked to resign which means he was fired and the PVA doesn’t apply.

On top of this there is the issue that Mr. Whitaker has also repeatedly criticized the Mueller investigation indicating that his taking over control of that investigation from Rod Rosenstein — which has just occurred — may be a direct ethics violation under DOJ rules.

Napolitano also stated Whitaker himself, if he was put in this position specifically to interfere with Mueller, could himself become a target of Mueller’s investigation.

“The president can fire an attorney general if for almost any reason. He cannot fire him if the purpose is to shake up the leadership of the Justice Department in order to interfere with a criminal investigation that the president wants to interfere with,” Napolitano said

He added, “If that’s the reason for which Mr. Whitaker is now the acting Attorney General of the United States — Mr. Whitaker himself could be in the crosshairs of Bob Mueller.”

This would apply to potential obstruction of justice an issue which — even though Mueller has agreed to accept written questions about collusion — he’s reserved the right to question Trump about obstruction in person about.

Whitaker has said about the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskya that someone like Don Junior “would always take that meeting” which considering just campaign finance and Logan Act violation is just bonkers.

“What happened here is this lawyer used a pretext to get a meeting with, you know, some important campaign officials to really talk about the issue she wants to talk to which is getting rid of this U.S. policy regarding adoptions,” Whitaker said in the July 2017 CNN clip recorded while he was still executive director of the Foundation for Accountability & Civic Trust, a conservative watchdog group.

He added that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya used the “B.S. excuse of saying she had opposition research” to lure Trump Jr., former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to the infamous Trump Tower meeting in July 2016.

“We all agree it’s ludicrous,” Whitaker said of the Russian’s promise of “dirt” on Clinton.

He’s also whined that the Mueller investigation had “gone too far” even though the original letter by Rod Rosenstein specifically authorized Mueller to not just investigation connections between Trump and Russia but also “any other relevant matters” which arose as a result of that investigation.

“Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s letter appointing special counsel Robert Mueller does not give Mueller broad, far-reaching powers in this investigation,” the erstwhile AG chief of staff wrote. “He is only authorized to investigate matters that involved any potential links to and coordination between two entities — the Trump campaign and the Russian government.”
No, he wasn’t.
www.documentcloud.org/…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/7/1810991/-Judge-Anthony-Napolitano-says-that-assigning-Matthew-Whitaker-as-Acting-AG-is-illegal?utm_campaign=trending