Posted on 11/12/2018 11:44:50 PM PST by Revel
President Trump's choice of Matthew Whitaker to be the acting attorney general is running into a buzz-saw of opposition, and not just from Democrats. And now, the first legal action is being filed Tuesday, by the state of Maryland, challenging Whitaker's status.
It does not involve limits to asylum claims that Whitaker has already put into effect, nor any challenge involving the Mueller investigation of the president, which Whitaker has frequently criticized.
No, the first blow involves the Affordable Care Act, and whether its provisions guaranteeing that people with previous medical conditions are entitled to health insurance rates similar to others in their state or community.
Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Trump administration had stopped defending key parts of the Affordable Care Act in court on the grounds that the law became unconstitutional when Congress repealed the tax penalty for individuals' failure to buy health insurance.
Maryland filed suit against Sessions challenging that position.
But now that Sessions is no longer attorney general, Maryland is buttressing its argument. The state contends that Whitaker was unlawfully named acting attorney general, and so he has no authority to respond to their lawsuit.
The state seeks a preliminary injunction that prevents the federal government from responding to the suit while Whitaker appears as acting attorney general. Instead, Maryland requests a declaration that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is the acting attorney general.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
"State of Maryland asks judge to declare Rosenstein acting attorney general"
But that article has been pulled
I got messed up the title of this article should be:
“Maryland Says Matthew Whitaker Appointment As Acting Attorney General Is Unlawful”
Fire Rosenweasel, citing this suit as the reason!
And what Maryland is doing is UNLAWFUL, obscene, and outrageous; not to mention the fact that they have NO standing!
And where does Maryland or the judge claim authority to say that?
They have no say in such appointments.
Use every bit of power to bring the hammer down on them all. They are a curse upon America and deserve to be tossed.
Wellll now-— article from NPR from Nina Totenberg (she of the high tech lynching “discovery” of Anita Hill’s non-existent sexual harrassment claim against SCOTUS nominee, Clarence Thomas).
Marvelous activist timing— since Nina T’s sister... Federal Judge AMY Totenberg (who gave 1750 to obamaumao’s campaign) has just ORDERED The State of Georgia to “review” already proven FALSE provisional ballots (50% of which have already been shown to be non-citizen, non verified voters in a precinct), in the Governor’s race. INTERFERING in a State election by a Federal Judge. Amy Totenberg.
See how the work together. The Dept. of Just Us.... and in this case liberal activist white leftist jewish manipulation of black voters (just as Nina’s peeps felt is was OK to “railroad” Clarence Thomas because— well, all black men are rapists. Couldn’t have been better than if Anita Hill had been white— to maintain the gubmint plantation).
The appointment exactly complies with the letter of the law: https://www.gsa.gov/governmentwide-initiatives/presidential-transition/legislative-overview/the-federal-vacancies-reform-act-of-1998
This is a very good article on the subject as well.
For God’s sake:
John F. Kennedy appointed his BROTHER Attorney General and nothing was said about it.
DO NOT GIVE IN TO THESE RADCALS. We have a right, with President Trump as our leader, to appoint anyone who qualifies.
I hate Libs and Dems.
I’m pretty sure this is exactly why the law is so specific about this. After decades my observation is that most laws and regs are written after a AARP on failure.
Trump should demand the wall funding in exchange for keeping Mueller employed.
“John F. Kennedy appointed his BROTHER Attorney General and nothing was said about it.”
So when Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967, informally known as the Bobby Kennedy Law, that was nothing said??? You do know every search engine is free to use, right??? If you go over to the dark side, a popular theme among the conspiracy crowd is that a pivotal event almost exactly 55 years ago was the result of certain gentlemen of Mediterranean extraction expressing their opinion of that appointment and the performance of that appointee which cramped their business endeavors.
bkmk
Brian Frosh, just reelected as our AG, has either little understanding of or little regard for the Constitution of the United States and federal law. In particular he appears to have not read the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (5 U.S.C. § 3345). We ran a very competent attorney against him this year, but the Democrat numbers were too overwhelming.
Interestingly, the strongest case for this in recent years comes from none other than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion in the infamous National Labor Relations Board v. SW General, Inc. case in 2017. Thomas took the Obama administration to task and suggested that the provision of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) allowing appointees to serve in "acting" roles was unconstitutional. Here's his money quote:
"We cannot cast aside the separation of powers and the Appointments Clause’s important check on executive power for the sake of administrative convenience or efficiency. That the Senate voluntarily relinquished its advice-and-consent power in the FVRA does not make this end-run around the Appointments Clause constitutional."
The good news is that Maryland's lawsuit will probably take longer to resolve than Whitaker can even stay in office.
The better news is that Maryland's claim that Rod Rosenstein must become the acting AG will not stand up to any Constitutional scrutiny. The Deputy AG position was never established by Congress, and it exists only as an executive branch creation through an internal DOJ memorandum dating back to 1950. All Congress did after 1950 was pass a law requiring any Deputy AG appointee -- IF the President wanted to name one -- to be confirmed by the Senate.
Also ... The succession order for the U.S. Attorney General in the event of a vacancy is established through Executive Order, not Federal statute. President Trump is probably having his "acting AG" draft a new Executive Order as we speak -- cutting the Deputy AG out of the succession line completely.
Maryland cannot order the President of the United States to put a specific person in that role. A U.S. state has no legal standing to make such a demand. The only thing they CAN do is challenge the authority of the existing "acting" AG.
What standing does a plaintiff in a lawsuit have to claim that the person who runs the defendant entity wasn’t properly appointed?
None.
In the NLRB case I cited, the "defendant" in that case was functioning the same way as the plaintiff in the Maryland case -- by challenging the authority of the NLRB chief counsel to take disciplinary action against SW General, Inc. over alleged labor law violations.
SW General, Inc. won the case.
Interestingly, it was a 7-2 decision. Even Breyer and Kagan agreed that Obama was completely out of line in appointing the NLRB's chief counsel without Senate approval.
It won’t matter in the end. Whitaker is asking for a conflict of interest determination on the big item anyway...
I’m not sure that’s true. There was a report about it last night from one of the most unreliable columnists in the business.
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