[Meet the New Boss]

Eric Dubelier informing the Court of expected motions to be filed: "We are going to challenge the authority of the Special Counsel generally. We are going to challenge the authority of the special counsel specifically with respect to his power to bring this case."

Finally.

Manafort's lawyers have done a poor job framing the issue and arguing before either Judge Ellis or Judge Berman Jackson. Hopefully the Reed Smith team will do a better job.

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?

Without having to comply with the constitutional and statutory requirements that a person with such power be appointed by the politically-accountable president and confirmed by the politically-accountable senate?

[Brilliant]

“Abrupt” hang up? As opposed to a slow, gradual one?

[Meet the New Boss]

So if Concord Management is guilty of a crime by funding dodgy Russian social media posts that were published during the election, is Hillary guilty of a crime by funding dodgy British dossier reports that were shopped around to the media and injected into the FBI during the election?

[BenLurkin]

Lawyers. Unh. What are they good for?

Absolutely nuthin’

Say it again....

[Will88]

Can’t read behind the pay wall. Any news of whether Mueller and his gang ever produced the evidence used to charge Concord to Concord’s attorneys? (If such evidence exists.)

[rolling_stone]

....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?

Without having to comply with the constitutional and statutory requirements that a person with such power be appointed by the politically-accountable president and confirmed by the politically-accountable senate? ....

excellent synopsis, I impatiently await the decision of these important questions!

[trebb]

The more Mueller overreaches, the more push back will happen....

[Okeydoker]

Which statute requires a Special Counsel to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate as you assert?

[Alberta's Child]

These arguments about the jurisdiction of the special counsel are really questionable in the context of most of these criminal cases involving Mueller's team.

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.

[Red Steel]

Mueller is getting his rear end handed to him.

[lurk]

What was that word that counsel for defense used a couple of weeks ago to describe the prosecution? Puffboonery or something like that.

[griswold3]

perfectly reasonable question

[wildbill]

When the defendants’ attorneys get tired of laughing at the Special Counsels feeble attempts to justify their charges and allegations—and filing motions that document the absolute lack of a valid case, I think they should ask the judge to dismiss with prejudice and sanction these Special Counsels for not following the Rules of Procedure.

I think the Rules of Procedure in Federal Court require that an attorney attest that the allegations in the case brought to the Court are true and correct to the best of his knowledge. It seems that they didn’t know who they were indicting, what crime is alleged against particular defendants or what their “evidence” was when they got the indictment.

[RitaOK]

I am reminded that Mueller (FBI) was told straight up, by their own old Russian friend, that there was no “collusion” by Manafort with Russians.

(This Russian, whose name begins with a “D”, had years ago helped the FBI retrieve one of their own from IRAN, so he was trusted to some extent.)

Mueller launched anyway, against Manafort, but was led not *toward* the supposed FISA jurisdiction against the Trump campaign, but *away* from it. All the way backward from the campaign to the year 2005! LOL!

Manafort business dealings as an international lobbyist. Funny. No one at the FBI seemed to be interested in the Podesta firm doing the same thing. In fact, Podesta and Manafort together lobbyied in the Ukraine.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Why did you excerpt this content?

This site is not on FR's Exceprt list.

Are you the site's author?

[WilliamCooper1]

This is where Muller is going to look really bad. He thought he could just indict these foreign nationals and that they would not show up and challenge the charge. Now, they have not only appeared, but they are going scorched earth pretrial litigation. This is going to be hilarious.

[Texas Songwriter]

When a witness is caught in a bald-faced lie his testimony is often completely disregarded, even to the point that the judge says his testimony may be stricken. Now the prosecutor, you know that guy with an impeccable record, unassailable, confabulates an entire case and prosection from thin air, and the judge does not throw this and all cases he brings out of court. What does the ABA think about this type of behavior?