Sessions OUT

[RayThom]

And today's DOJ update. He's wasting no time pleasing the boss.

Acting Attorney General Whitaker Statement On Presidential Proclamation
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/acting-a ... oclamation

[Big RR]

I don't get his point; that seems to show me that the law is worthless because the real claims are a small percentage of those filed; isn't that the point of the adjudication? Otherwise it could just be granted summarily. This guy is a piece of work.

[Sue U]

Not a real lawyer, doesn't know how the system is supposed to work, just another unqualified Trump sycophant grifter appointed to a cabinet post because obviously.

ETA:

Oh, just checked his Wiki profile, and it is truly damning; the guy is a serial loser but for white male privilege and kissing Iowa GOP/dark-money ass:

After graduating from law school, Whitaker worked for a number of regional law firms including Briggs & Morgan (Minneapolis) and Finley Alt Smith (Des Moines). He was also corporate counsel for a national grocery company, SuperValu, and small businessman owning interests in a trailer manufacturing company, a daycare, and a concrete supply company.[6]

Whitaker ran as a Republican for Treasurer of Iowa in 2002, losing to incumbent Democrat Michael Fitzgerald by 55% to 43%.[7]

United States Attorney

On June 15, 2004, Whitaker was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa by President George W. Bush. From 2005 to 2007, he was responsible for the unsuccessful investigation and prosecution of Iowa State Sen. Matt McCoy, a liberal Democrat, on charges of attempting to extort $2000. The jury took less than two hours to return a not guilty verdict.[8]
Whitaker's U.S. Attorney portrait

Whitaker resigned in November 2009 following the Senate confirmation of his replacement, Nicholas A. Klinefeldt, who was nominated by President Barack Obama.[4][9][10]

Private career and political activities

From 2009-2017, Whitaker was a managing partner of the small general practice law firm Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP (now Hagenow & Gustoff LLP).[11]

Whitaker was the co-chairman of Texas Governor Rick Perry's 2012 presidential campaign.[12]

Whitaker was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2014 United States Senate election in Iowa, a seat being vacated by Democrat Tom Harkin. He came fourth in the Republican primary in June, with 11,909 votes (7.54%). The nomination was won by Joni Ernst, who went on to win the general election.[13] After losing the Republican primary, Whitaker chaired the campaign of Sam Clovis, another unsuccessful primary candidate who had been selected, later in June, to run for Iowa State Treasurer.[14] Clovis lost in the November 2014 general election.[15][16][17]

In 2014, Whitaker became a paid advisory board member for World Patent Marketing.[18] In March 2017, the Federal Trade Commission commenced litigation for fraud.[19][20] In May 2018, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered the company to pay more than $25 million and cease operations.[21] The company donated to Whitaker's 2014 Senate campaign.[22] He received $9,375 between 2014 and 2016 and was owed a further $7,500 at the time the FTC shut down the company.[23] The New York Times reported on November 8, 2018 that court documents show "when frustrated consumers tried to get their money back, Scott J. Cooper, the company’s president and founder, used Mr. Whitaker to threaten them as a former federal prosecutor."[24]

From October 2014 to September 2017, Whitaker was the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust,[25] and the organization's only full-time employee in 2015 and 2016.[26] FACT, founded in late 2014, is a conservative nonprofit organization specializing in legal and ethical issues related to politics.[27][28] The Washington Post reported in February 2015 that "The group is backed by $1 million in seed money from donors who support conservative legal causes", and that Whitaker had declined to identify the donors.[29] According to the organization's first tax return, its funding — $600,000 in 2014 - came from a conservative donor-advised fund called DonorsTrust, a pass-through vehicle that allows donors to remain anonymous.[30]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_W ... (attorney)

[Big RR]

Well so was Sessions, but surprisingly he rose to the occasion; I don't see that happening here but we can always hope.

[RayThom]

Would you buy a used hot tub from this guy?

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/10 ... 1159713792

[Sue U]

Would you buy a used hot tub from this guy?

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/10 ... 1159713792

Oh, that is hilarious. "Hot Tub Crime Machine" is my favorite response. Hot tub salesman to US AG in three short years. Not your traditional career path, but hey, I understand he was actually angling for only a federal judicial appointment in Iowa. He really overshot the audition!

[Lord Jim]

Not a real lawyer, doesn't know how the system is supposed to work, just another unqualified Trump sycophant grifter appointed to a cabinet post because obviously.

Well so was Sessions, but surprisingly he rose to the occasion

In terms of qualifications, Sessions was Elliot Richardson, William Saxbe, and Griffin Bell all rolled into one compared to this garbanzo...

Muscle Head Matt is just one very shortly spaced rung above Michael "Yes, it really is an accredited law school" Cohen on the qualifications ladder to be the Attorney General of The United States...

Jimmy McGill would be more qualified...

It's a complete joke...

[BoSoxGal]

And now a story breaks that he’s under criminal investigation by the FBI for a past business endeavor - the very FBI he is now the boss of.

Trump never fails to dig up the scummiest people to fill the job openings!

[Lord Jim]

I've read and heard a lot of what seem like good arguments that Muscle Head's appointment is illegal and/or unconstitutional...

Which has caused me to wonder, "Well, if that is true, who would have standing to legally challenge the appointment?"...(Because if nobody has that standing, the issue is pretty much moot...)

It seems the answer to my question is, "That's a very good question":

Democrats in murky legal water with Whitaker lawsuits

Democrats at the state, local and national level are moving to challenge President Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, but experts say the law isn’t clear on who can take legal action in this kind of situation.

Senate Democrats took the first step by saying they’re considering filing a lawsuit, followed by San Francisco’s Democratic city attorney, who threatened court action against the man who replaced former Attorney General Jeff Sessions atop the Justice Department, arguing that Whitaker hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) on Tuesday was the first to challenge the constitutionality of Whitaker’s appointment. He asked a federal court to block the acting attorney general from arguing against a state lawsuit dealing with the Affordable Care Act and protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

“The argument is he cannot act in their case as attorney general, but this would not be the strongest possible case to make this argument,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and opinion contributor to The Hill.

"There’s a great rush for people to be the first to bring a challenge, but they are often not the optimal case to do so,” he said, adding that he expects the Maryland case to be one of many.

Senate Democrats face an even steeper uphill battle if they decide to pursue a lawsuit — it might not even get off the ground, according to some experts.

Stephen Vladeck, professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, said the Senate as an institution has to be the one to assert they were injured by Trump’s decision to appoint Whitaker.[this is a really important point...Groups of members of Congress for years have attempted to challenge the legality of various executive branch actions (frequently the use of military force) only to have their suits thrown out based on lack of standing because they did not represent the institution of either the Senate or the House.]

The injury they’re likely to claim, he said, is that Trump sidestepped the advice and consent role of the Senate by naming Whitaker, previously chief of staff to Sessions at the Justice Department, as acting attorney general over Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was next in command.

But Senate Democrats aren’t an institution, according to Vladeck.

“Even if every Democratic senator sued, it’s not the kind of institutional injury the Supreme Court has typically required for cases like this,” he said.

Still, Democrats have had some success in the past on that front. Last year about 200 Democrats brought a lawsuit against Trump alleging he had violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which bars presidents from accepting gifts and payments from foreign governments without congressional approval.

A federal district court judge in D.C. ruled that Democrats had standing to bring the case forward despite the government's argument that the lawmakers alone weren’t an institution. The court said it is unlikely another plaintiff would have standing. Trump has since asked the court for permission to appeal the interim ruling that allowed the case to proceed.

But things are different with Whitaker appointment.

Even though Democrats were denied their constitutional right to give advice and consent, experts say they weren’t really injured. With Republicans in control of the Senate, Democratic votes for or against his confirmation wouldn’t have mattered.

“If a big ole group of GOP senators brought suit they would have a better argument for standing because they could say, ‘Our votes have functionally been nullified. If you had gone through the Senate we would have mattered,’” said Andy Hessick, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

But if the Senate were to pass a resolution paving the way for a lawsuit, as the Republican-led House did in 2014 to challenge the Affordable Care Act, some argue that senators would have standing.

Others, however, say even then it’s not a certainty.

Tara Leigh Grove, a professor of law at William & Mary Law School, said government institutions don’t suffer any specific injuries when constitutional powers are violated.

“Institutions are the vessels through which these constitutional powers and duties flow; they are not the beneficiaries of this scheme,” she argued in a University of Pennsylvania Law Review article.

She pointed out that while the Supreme Court in 2015 upheld the Arizona legislature’s standing to sue over its right to regulate federal elections, the high court has never ruled on whether federal institutions have standing.

“The law is not clear at all,” she said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is now calling for a hearing into the lawfulness of Whitaker’s command.

A source close to the Judiciary Committee said a lawsuit is something Democrats are looking into, but they’re still in the beginning stages of research and discussion.

Many legal scholars agree it was unconstitutional for Trump to appoint Whitaker to the interim role after forcing Sessions to resign, but there’s less consensus over who has standing to bring a formidable challenge in court.

In a New York Times opinion piece last week co-written by Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under former President Obama, and George Conway III, a Washington attorney, the authors said Trump’s move “defied one of the explicit checks and balances set out in the Constitution, a provision designed to protect us all against the centralization of government power.”

They and legal experts said the president’s move was illegal because Whitaker has never been confirmed by the Senate, a requirement of principal officers in an administration.

“He has now been vested with the law enforcement authority of the entire United States government, including the power to supervise Senate-confirmed officials like the deputy attorney general, the solicitor general and all United States attorneys,” Katyal and Conway wrote.

Trump has defended his selection, calling Whitaker a “very well-respected man.” On Tuesday, CNN reported the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel is expected to release an opinion defending his appointment.

Court watchers say there will be ample opportunities for private citizens to challenge Whitaker’s appointment through agency actions, a situation they say the administration could easily have avoided.

“It’s baffling why Whitaker’s appointment is critical to the White House when it raises so many difficult questions and it’s likely to cause difficulties for the Department of Justice in an array of difficult cases,” Turley said. “It’s baffling why they wouldn’t go with Rosenstein or the solicitor general.”

[Actually it's not baffling at all; Trump has made clear, publicly and repeatedly, for a long time that he wants a political stooge in that job who will protect him and his cronies from legal action while using the Justice Department to punish his political opponents. Muscle Head fits this criteria to a tee.

And even if there's enough political blow back to prevent him from being there long enough to accomplish those objectives, at a minimum we can be sure that he will be funneling every bit of the work product from Mueller's investigation to Trump's legal team for as long as he is there, and that is a damage that cannot be undone.]

https://thehill.com/regulation/416538-d ... r-lawsuits

It seems to me there's one person who could definitely demonstrate injury by the Whitaker appointment, and thus have standing to challenge it legally...

That would be the guy who in the normal course of things would have had the job; Rod Rosenstein...

But that ain't happening...