Posted on 05/18/2018 9:19:31 AM PDT by Meet the New Boss
Tensions escalated Wednesday between the special counsel’s office and the Reed Smith defense lawyers representing a Russian business charged with interfering in the 2016 presidential election, as the two sides disputed whether a recent phone conversation ended with an abrupt hang-up.
snip
Wednesday’s status hearing came two days after Dubelier and his co-counsel, Reed Smith partner Katherine Seikaly, filed a brief asking to review the legal instructions Mueller’s team gave to the grand jury that indicted Concord Management and Consulting.
But the request went further than that. The Reed Smith lawyers ridiculed the alleged crime as “make-believe” and derided the prosecution as having “absolutely nothing to do” with the special counsel’s core mandate of investigating coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.
In the court filing, the Reed Smith lawyers said the prosecutors’ reason for bringing the case “is obvious, and is political: to justify his own existence the special counsel has to indict a Russian—any Russian.”
snip
On Wednesday, Dubelier said he was agitated by language that grouped Concord Management and Consulting in with the other defendants in the case. He said the 13 Russian individuals were affiliated with another entity, the Internet Research Agency, and noted that Concord Management and Consulting is accused of funding the alleged conspiracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at law.com ...
Which statute requires a Special Counsel to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate as you assert?
I made the statutory argument here, nearly a year ago:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3560542/posts
Steve Calebresi makes the constitutional argument here:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3654997/posts
Do politically-unaccountable bureaucrats in the DOJ (I'm looking at you, Rosey) have the power unilaterally to take someone off the street and vest that person with the power to roam the country and with the same power as a US Attorney indict people for crimes in federal court?
They do it all the time. There are a bunch of DOJ appointments that require Senate confirmation, including the U.S. Attorneys for the 93 district courts.
There is no constitutional requirement for every Federal case to be prosecuted by someone who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Most Federal cases are prosecuted by prosecutors who have never been confirmed by the Senate. In fact, constitutional arguments related to this issue can be challenging because the U.S. Department of Justice didn't even exist until after the Civil War.
Here's the text of the U.S. Constitution as it applies to presidential nominations and Senate confirmation (note the bold text):
... and [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The bold text clearly gives Congress the power to vest the President or even his cabinet appointees with the power to appoint "inferior Officers" as they see fit. Since the DOJ didn't exist until 1870, the legal authority of the various appointments in the DOJ would have to be determined by reading the various statutes where each position in the DOJ was legislated into existence.
I have seen no references to any statute that supports the contention that the appointment of a "special counsel" is illegal.
I don't think there's any legal basis to the argument that the Office of the Special Counsel is illegitimate. There are, however, potential legal arguments about the scope and authority of a special counsel in a particular case. The Russian defendants have a much better argument to make here than the domestic (American) ones do.
When someone such as an Assistant US Attorney prosecutes a case, they are derivatively using the prosecutorial power of the US Attorney, or in the case of main justice lawyers, of the AG or other principal officer confirmed by the senate.
Mueller is getting his rear end handed to him.
OK. Then let's translate it to the Office of the Special Counsel ...
"When someone such as a Special Counsel prosecutes a case, they are derivatively using the prosecutorial power of the U.S. Attorney General or the Deputy AG (both of whom are confirmed by the U.S. Senate) who appointed them."
Your supporting documentation is good but your legal reasoning seems very weak.
super LOL Jeannie Rhee caught with her panties down. What a dope.
So in other words, there is no statute requiring special counsels to be confirmed, only your belief that they should be.
But as the discussion you cited clearly showed, among other things, the US Supreme Court has previously ruled that Special Counsel appointees are inferior officers of the govt and do not requires Senate confirmation. And in fact no one is publicly claiming that they are not.
Of all the legitimate criticism of the current special counsel, of which there is considerable amount, the least persuasive is that the law requires him to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate, notwithstanding your belief that that is the case.
What was that word that counsel for defense used a couple of weeks ago to describe the prosecution? Puffboonery or something like that.
I don't think there's any legal basis to the argument that the Office of the Special Counsel is illegitimate. There are, however, potential legal arguments about the scope and authority of a special counsel in a particular case.
It is my understanding that DOJ rules predicate the appointment of a Special Counsel on a finding of cause to believe that a crime has been committed, and restrict the Special Counsel's jurisdiction to that crime, and, in the discretion of the appointing officer (AG or deputy), matters arising out of, or related to, that crime, or the investigation into that crime.
In the absence of those boundaries, you do not have a Special Counsel, but an Inquisitor Plenipotentiary.
Actually, it isnt so much that his legal reasoning is weak as much as it is that it is just wrong. When the US Supreme Court ruled that Special Counsels are not required to be Senate confirmed becasuse they are inferior officials that ended the legal debate, to the extent that there ever was one in the first place.
Mueller is lost in the ozone like Hillary. Mueller was appointed to be the eminent front of a dirty Democrat operation. Bob Mueller being - The face of rectitude and respectability. Reality, he is a down and dirty cop a demented deep state hack whose mission is to drag down Trumps polling numbers and to be a continual irritant and distraction.
Mueller is only half aware that he and his legal team look like idiots and failures. His pit bull prosecutor is Andrew Weissman and is the man to watch
I've thought this since day 1. I also think it's part of the reason Sessions recused himself. Sessions made it plain as daylight that he did not want to open investigations and prosecutions against the former administration and Hillary's email scandal.
perfectly reasonable question
The power of an AUSA on the one hand to prosecute a case using the authority and under the supervision of a US Attorney and the power of the Special Counsel on the other hand which is granted and defined by the DOJ special counsel regulations are different situations, which are not comparable because they are operating under different sources of legal authority.
The DOJ in its regulation attempts to make a special counsel to a large extent independent of DOJ officials and at the same time vested with the power of a US Attorney. Not the same as an AUSA.
From the regulation:
“The Special Counsel shall not be subject to the day-to-day supervision of any official of the Department.”
and
“the Special Counsel shall exercise, within the scope of his or her jurisdiction, the full power and independent authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions of any United States Attorney.”
That would be 1988. PC’s used ‘386 processors and Macs used 680x0 chips. Good disks for businesses that knew hot to take use of their computers used 80Mb hard drives and Windows for work group was popular. 5 1/4 floppy drives were around but they were disappearing quickly and 3 1/2 drives were on the rise.
The Supreme Court case of Morrison v Olson ruled on the constitutionality of Independent Prosecutors appointed pursuant to a congressional statute, which provided specific statutory roles for the AG, the courts and congress with respect to the special counsel. That statute expired.
The Special Counsel on the other hand is a different legal animal entirely, created under no congressional statute but solely under DOJ regulations, and presents a different set of legal issues.
pettifoggery
Our enemies must be laughing their butts off.
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