Former Attorney General Ed Meese has presented arguments to the Supreme Court that they should reject Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s requests because he was unconstitutionally appointed in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meese, along with law professors Steven G. Calabresi and Gary S. Lawson, filed a friend-of-the-court brief Wednesday to present the case that Attorney General Merrick Garland\u2019s appointment of Smith \u2014 a private citizen \u2014 is in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Not clothed in the authority of the federal government, Smith is a modern example of the naked emperor,\u2019 the brief states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Improperly appointed, he has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court than Bryce Harper, Taylor Swift, or Jeff Bezos,\u2019 they argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The brief was filed in response to Smith\u2019s request to the court to expedite former President Donald Trump\u2019s case arguing presidential immunity for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, which are connected to criminal charges brought by Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meese argues that the \u2018illegality\u2019 of Smith\u2019s appointment is \u2018sufficient to sink Smith\u2019s petition, and the Court should deny review.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meese and company noted in the brief that Smith was appointed \u2018to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity [including former President Donald Trump] violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.\u2019<\/p>\n
While Garland cited as statutory authority for this appointment, Meese argues that \u2018none of those statutes, nor any other statutory or constitutional provisions, remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Second, even if one overlooks the absence of statutory authority for the position, there is no statute specifically authorizing the Attorney General, rather than the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint such a Special Counsel,\u2019 the former AG wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Under the Appointments Clause, inferior officers can be appointed by department heads only if Congress so directs by statute\u2026 and so directs specifically enough to overcome a clear-statement presumption in favor of presidential appointment and senatorial confirmation. No such statute exists for the Special Counsel,\u2019 he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meese, who served as attorney general under former President Reagan, said \u2018the Special Counsel, if a valid officer, is a superior (or principal) rather than inferior officer, and thus cannot be appointed by any means other than presidential appointment and senatorial confirmation regardless of what any statutes purport to say.\u2019<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Smith petitioned the high court to decide Trump\u2019s immunity claims in his case facing charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith asked for expedited consideration of the case to essentially have the high court take over jurisdiction before the lower federal courts have fully decided the matter.<\/p>\n
Smith wants the court to expedite the claims in hopes to keep Trump\u2019s Washington, D.C., trial \u2014 scheduled to begin March 4 \u2014 on track.<\/p>\n\n
Former Attorney General Ed Meese has presented arguments to the Supreme Court that they should reject Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s requests because he was unconstitutionally appointed in the first place.\u00a0 Meese, along with law professors Steven G. Calabresi and Gary S. Lawson, filed a friend-of-the-court brief Wednesday to present the case that Attorney General Merrick <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}