Kellyanne Conway’s husband calls Trump’s appointment of acting attorney general unconstitutional

Discussion in 'United States' started by Egoboy, Nov 8, 2018.

  1. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    The President isn't being formally named! If Mueller has a problem, he can formally name the President for the first time since being appointed as 'special counsel'. It's frustrated me to no end: "Protect Mueller! We must protect Mueller!" I prefer to protect elected officials(Trump.)

    Only one person is flouting our political laws as we know them(Mueller). Mueller is more out-of-bounds than Whittaker.
     
  2. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    I am waiting to hear from Taylor Swift myself.
     
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  3. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    If no one understands anything, understand this: We did not elect Mueller. Mueller has not been placed on any ballot, campaigned not to ONE State or is accountable to us in any way, shape or form whatsoever. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, Mueller as a legal authority is as stinky as it gets. At least the FBI for example is authorized as a law enforcement agency. It would have been preferable(regardless of the circumstances surrounding a few FBI agents) for the FBI to have been the de-facto authority into the investigation.

    If we took out the names 'Trump' and 'Mueller' and just painted them as 'Person A'(Trump) and 'Person B'(Mueller), the people would utterly reject Person B as an anormaly so large in our country, it couldn't stand.

    We absolutely need reforms, but not to 'protect Mueller', but to be assured that a Mueller could never happen again. Law Enforcement is not a device to resolve political disputes, but that's how Democrats(and quietly, some Never Trumpers) want to use law enforcement.
     
  4. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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    Mueller is answerable to the law, not A N.
     
  5. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    I never said he's answerable to me. I said he's answerable to no one(well, technically Whittaker for the time being.) but it's not like the chain has been yanked necessarily. The idea that there's an 'investigation' without a predetermined crime, is ridiculous. There isn't even a known(or released) suspect list of this hereto unknown crime!
     
  6. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

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    And the FBI, at least on paper, is accountable to Congress, and in fact is a creation of Congress. Who is Mueller accountable to? With all the shenanigans surrounding the beginning of this Special Counsel, it should be shut down for lack of due process.
     
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  7. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    He's a retard.

    Ignorant Turd is More Mouthy than Right:

    “Matthew Whitaker joined the Trump Justice Department as Sessions’s chief of staff in October 2017. The date is relevant. The president has named him as acting attorney general under the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (the relevant provisions are codified at Sections 3345 and 3346 of Title 5, U.S. Code). There has been some commentary suggesting that because Whitaker was in a job (chief of staff) that did not require Senate confirmation, he could not become the “acting officer” in a position (AG) that calls for Senate confirmation. Not so. The Vacancies Act enables the president to name an acting officer, who may serve as such for 210 days, as long as the person named has been working at the agency or department for at least 90 days in a fairly high-ranking position. Whitaker qualifies.”​

    That would be the Clinton-Era Vacancies Reform Act.
     
  8. mdrobster

    mdrobster Well-Known Member

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    thats the article i read, thanks.
     
  9. TrackerSam

    TrackerSam Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's an interim appointment. Somebody drops dead, quits or gets fired you expect to have Senate hearings the next day?
     
  10. An Old Guy

    An Old Guy Well-Known Member

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    There are 3 options in the Vacancies Reform Act, the first would have the current asst AG as the acting AG. The second would result in the appointment of another Senate confirmed person as the acting AG - an example would be the Solicitor General. These first two options involve Senate confirmed individuals - of people appointed by Trump himself.

    Trump went directly to door #3, the third option - which is an officer or employee having worked for the DoJ for at least 90 days before appointment and has a pay grade of at least GS-15. Given Matt Whitaker's pro-Trumpian and anti-Mueller background on full public display, I believe we all know why Trump went with door #3 - in spite of already having two Senate confirmed individuals that Trump himself appointed.

    The legal community of both sides of the political spectrum seem to be in agreement that what Trump has done is unconstitutional and, in my opinion, a dark stain on the office of the presidency. To use Trump's favorite phrase - "it's a disgrace". I don't think this is quite over yet.......
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2018
  11. Esperance

    Esperance Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is nothing to prevent Whitaker from assuming the acting AG role. The ONLY thing that Whitaker can't do is sign off on FISA applications. But there are others who can, so it is a mute point.

    But this is not about Whitaker. It is about taking the firewall away by clearing out Rosenstein from being in charge of Mueller.

    The Dems are in a panic about Rosenstein not being able to hold off the release of the Carter Page FISA warrant applications any more.
    And Mueller is vulnerable because Weissman is now directly linked to Sussman.
    Trump said as much in his news conference. Trump now has them by the neck and Pelosi knows it.
     
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  12. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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    The Carter Page FISA warrant crap flap by the GOP is a nothing burger.

    Bring that on and let the GOP, instead of thought as being craven and stupid, known as such.

    Trump has nothing by the neck.
     
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  13. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

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    It's a whole new ballgame. Up until now, this farce of an investigation has been in the hands of a biased Trump-hater, no more. Rosenstein should have recused himself long ago, you can't be both a witness and a prosecutor at the same time.
     
  14. TrackerSam

    TrackerSam Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why would option #3 be a legal and viable option and yet be unconstitutional.
     
  15. Esperance

    Esperance Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Tell that to Carter Page and his attorneys who are currently conducting, "discovery," on the case that they have filed in Federal court.

    Whitaker might just become the AAG after Trump appoints a new AG.
     
  16. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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    That's the GOP whistling on the way by the graveyard of GOP ambitions.
     
  17. Egoboy

    Egoboy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Whozzat??
     
  18. An Old Guy

    An Old Guy Well-Known Member

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    Use your Google machine to have a look at what the law community, on both sides of the political spectrum, is saying about this. And have a look at what one of Trump's favorite judges, Clarence Thomas, wrote about this two years ago - link below. Options 1 & 2 offer Trump Senate confirmed individuals, people he himself appointed. Option 3, Trump's pick, Matt Whitaker, is a non Senate confirmed appointment but is a willing Trump hack, ready to do his part in shutting down and/or handicapping the Mueller investigation. Even worse, I think there is a real risk Whitaker could even let Trump know what's going on in the investigation, which is an absolute no-no but, rules and laws don't matter to Trump and Whitaker might be too ideologically bent to realize the danger....

    I laughed my ass off earlier today - on his way to the helicopter Trump says he "doesn't know Matt Whittaker" but he's heard good things about him. Last month in a Fox News interview he said he knows Whittaker and likes him. According to reports Whittaker has been in the oval office on numerous occasions. The pathological liar can't keep facts straight.....and Whitaker has absolutely no business being the AG of the United States. Hell, there are people on this board I'd nominate before this charlatan.....

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/opinion/trump-attorney-general-sessions-unconstitutional.html
     
  19. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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  20. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    The Vacancies Act enables the president to name an acting officer, who may serve as such for 210 days, as long as the person named has been working at the agency or department for at least 90 days in a fairly high-ranking position. Whitaker qualifies.

    So why can't he sign FISA warrants?

    With Mueller, Rosenstein has been passive and laboring under blatant conflicts of interest.

    The special counsel has been scrutinizing the president’s firing of former FBI director James Comey in the obstruction aspect of his investigation. Rosenstein was a prominent participant in the firing and is thus an important witness. Rosenstein, moreover, signed off on the last FISA warrant application for surveillance against former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page, which is under investigation by Congress and DOJ’s inspector general. Rosenstein, using the Mueller investigation as part of his rationale, has stonewalled Congress’s demands for relevant information. The surveillance of Page is plainly germane to Mueller’s Russia investigation. Since Rosenstein’s actions are under scrutiny — and given that this is in addition to the just-described, patent conflict posed by his involvement in Comey’s firing — one would think Rosenstein would want to step aside rather than have his ethical sensibility questioned.

    While the press remains remarkably indifferent to Rosenstein’s conflicts, it is all over what are said to be Whitaker’s — stemming from an opinion essay he wrote for CNN a couple of months before joining the Trump administration. It is being alleged that Whitaker contended that any probe of the president’s finances would be beyond the scope of Mueller’s jurisdiction; he is further accused of using President Trump’s derogatory phrase — “witch hunt” — to belittle Mueller’s investigation. That is an overwrought distortion of what Whitaker wrote.

    The New York Times had asked President Trump if Mueller would be acting outside his mandate if he began investigating the Trump family finances. The president responded, “I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.” The burden of Whitaker’s op-ed was to defend Trump’s statement, which — while curt and ambiguous — did not claim that Mueller would be in the wrong if his inquiry into Trump’s finances had some good-faith connection to Russia.

    Whitaker was emphatic about what he found objectionable: the notion of an investigation unconnected to Russia — i.e., a fishing expedition into Trump’s finances without any articulable nexus to what Mueller was appointed to investigate, namely, Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

    Rosenstein’s order appointing provides Mueller excessive prerogative on the investigation.

    Whitaker did not say Mueller could not properly review Trump’s finances under any circumstances. He said that, to do so, Mueller would have to “return to Rod Rosenstein for additional authority.”


    Whitaker never said that Mueller’s investigation was a “witch hunt.” He said the investigation could become a witch hunt if Mueller were to investigate Trump’s finances in the absence of any connection to Russia and any formal broadening of the scope of his appointment by Rosenstein. That is manifestly true, a truth underscored by Rosenstein’s public insistence that Mueller is not, to borrow the deputy AG’s phrase, an “unguided missile.”

    Whitaker has not commented extensively on the Russia investigation and the comments made in his op-ed are uncontroversial. They do not question the worthiness of investigating Russia’s interference in the election, and they do not denigrate the Mueller investigation — they merely maintain that the investigation should stay within the bounds that Rosenstein has sought to assure the public it has respected.

    The removal of Rod Rosenstein as Mueller’s overseer is inevitable and overdue — which is not a condemnation of him, but a recognition that he should not be supervising an investigation in which his own actions are implicated. Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation appears to be at a ripe stage, and if Acting Attorney General Whitaker helps steer it to a prompt conclusion, that is all to the good.

    Whitaker is being prejudged in some quarters as a Trump “loyalist.” That pejorative label is more a function of what the president has reportedly said that he’d like to have in an attorney general (and in other executive offices serving the president). It is not a function of anything Whitaker has actually done.

    Let's give him time to work, it's past time to relieve Rosenstein of his conflicted position.
     
  21. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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    Zorro, that argument is incorrect.

    Whittaker will be gone very soon, Rosenstein will remain, and Mueller will keep working.
     
  22. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    Tribe has also turned into a stuttering moron. Law professor Larry Tribe was once spoken of as a likely Supreme Court nominee for a Democrat president. He used to be a smart guy. So, what went wrong? Check out this tweet from yesterday:

    [​IMG]

    This plumbs the depths of dumb. The Senate Majority Leader has nothing to do with appointments to House committees. What could possess anyone–let alone a once-renowned law professor–to blunder so badly?

    The tween was at 4pm, so drunk tweeting shouldn't be an issue, and even blind drunk, he shouldn't confuse the House and Senate. Normally you would suspect drunk tweeting, but Tribe’s tweet was at 4:00 in the afternoon. And anyway, even a high level of intoxication wouldn’t explain confusing the House and the Senate. I think the only explanation for the craziness we see from the Left, every day, is that "liberals" have become literally deranged by their hatred of Donald Trump–which, in many cases, is a personification of hatred for the United States, conservative principles, and constitutionalism, it is a very sad.
     
  23. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    It's completely correct.
    Rosenstein is gone as soon as Barr is confirmed. Rosenstein signed one of the faked up FISA applications that deliberately mislead FISC.

    Barr, as much as he loves Mueller, has to see how dangerous he has become with these media coordinated Soviet Style Show Paramilitary Raids. He sent more personnel against an old unarmed man in straw hat, than US forces used to storm OBL's final stronghold. Stun Grenades? Completely ridiculous. Highly dangerous. Dirty Bob Mueller has turned to Doxxing, clearly he has lost his sense of judgment.

    I suspect Barr will put Mueller back on the task of evaluating the now disgraced Comey's slander against the President of the United States, and if Mueller has charges he wants to bring regarding a Criminal Conspiracy between Trump and Putin to hack the DNC servers, he can put it forward, and if not, wrap it up, and let the DOJ handle the mundane or these silly process crimes Mueller seems so enamored of. But, I suspect this was Mueller's last circus clown act with these potentially dangerous paramilitary fake news coordinated Show Raids, without supervision and that someone with a brain will need to sign off on any future raids by the clearly addled Mueller Clown Show.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2019
  24. JakeStarkey

    JakeStarkey Well-Known Member

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    Rosenstein will stay until Mueller is completed.

    Barr will not redesign Muller's mandate. To even suggest such an idea is silly.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2019
  25. Egoboy

    Egoboy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yeah, that seems to be a dumb tweet from Tribe, but if it's not McConnell slow rolling these appointments, I suppose it is McCarthy who is??

    Regardless, that is easily one of the top House committees and needs to be staffed by T's before the end of the week. If they go into February, McCarthy needs to be investigated himself...

    No excuses here...
     

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