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House Democrats call for 'emergency hearing' after Sessions outing

Rexedgar said:
Because his AAG is not recused and is on record with negative opinions of the investigation, his boss, that he served as CoS was recused from.
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Yeah? So?

How would Whitaker have any information if acting as Sessions CoS was truly recused?
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Does recusal mean that even the CoS can't read the news on a daily basis and form an opinion of what is reported?
 
j-mac said:
Yeah? So?



Does recusal mean that even the CoS can't read the news on a daily basis and form an opinion of what is reported?
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You find no problem with assigning a man who has opined negatively regarding an investigation, oversight of that investigation?

An investigation his boss was recused from?
 
HumblePi said:
Democrats claim Sessions' firing was an effort by President Donald Trump to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is being urged by Democrats to recuse himself from the probe.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/415707-house-dems-call-for-emergency-hearing-after-sessions-ousting-urge

House Dems call for 'emergency hearing' after Sessions ousting, urge acting AG to recuse himself

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are calling for an emergency hearing after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he was resigning at President Trump's request on Wednesday.

House Judiciary Democrats are demanding answers for Sessions's ousting in letters written to the panel's GOP chairman and Sessions's replacement, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, respectively.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats pressed Whitaker, who was Trump's pick to serve as acting attorney general, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Thursday about how the shake-up at the highest levels of the Justice Department (DOJ) will impact special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

In their letter to Whitaker, the Democrats warned that a "constitutional crisis" could ensue if the Mueller probe is not protected, urging the new top cop to recuse himself and place Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein back in the supervisory role for the probe.

“There is little doubt that President Trump’s decision to force the firing of Attorney General Sessions places Special Counsel Mueller’s inquiry at grave risk,” Democrats' letter to Whitaker reads.
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Strange on how the political wheel turns on firing or resignations.
Comey found Clinton did nothing wrong with her unclassified server, Democratic loved Comey, Republicans wanted him fired.
They Comey reopened the Clinton case, then republicans loved him, Democrats wanted him fired.
Trump fired Comey, Democrats went from love to hate back to love again. Republican from hate to love back to hate or at least wanted him fired stating Trump did the right thing.
Sessions, Democrats were all over Sessions, all democrats but one voted nay on his confirmation. They have tried to disgrace him, get him fired. So Sessions resigns at Trumps request, one would think the Democrats would be overjoyed. But they too have gone from hate to love again, this time for Sessions. The Trump supporters never cared for Sessions outside of getting him confirmed.

Does any of this make any sense? Not to me.
 
Rexedgar said:
You find no problem with assigning a man who has opined negatively regarding an investigation, oversight of that investigation?

An investigation his boss was recused from?
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Well, first it is temporary....I believe there are time limits for "acting" positions....Second, I put this complaining in the category of bitching and moaning about something that hasn't happened...Tell ya what Rex..Get back to me when he does something material that he isn't allowed to do...Then we can hash it out....mmmmmk?
 
Harshaw said:
She was not confirmed as Acting Attorney General. If you read the article, you will find that the argument is that whomever is appointed needs to be confirmed in that office. Being confirmed for some other office doesn't cut it.
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****ing Duh, she was confirmed as the DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL. You know, 2nd in line if something happens to the AG? Again, executive order can move her to acting attorney general *without further senate confirmation* The same cannot be said from the political appointment of Whittaker. Furthermore, such appointments are made for people whose CURRENT JOB in that department required and received senate confirmation. Whittaker, was holding no such job at the time of his appointment.
 
j-mac said:
Well, first it is temporary....I believe there are time limits for "acting" positions....Second, I put this complaining in the category of bitching and moaning about something that hasn't happened...Tell ya what Rex..Get back to me when he does something material that he isn't allowed to do...Then we can hash it out....mmmmmk?
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It may be too late, or cause far more damage, if something happens. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
 
HumblePi said:
Democrats claim Sessions' firing was an effort by President Donald Trump to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is being urged by Democrats to recuse himself from the probe.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/415707-house-dems-call-for-emergency-hearing-after-sessions-ousting-urge

House Dems call for 'emergency hearing' after Sessions ousting, urge acting AG to recuse himself

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are calling for an emergency hearing after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he was resigning at President Trump's request on Wednesday.

House Judiciary Democrats are demanding answers for Sessions's ousting in letters written to the panel's GOP chairman and Sessions's replacement, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, respectively.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats pressed Whitaker, who was Trump's pick to serve as acting attorney general, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Thursday about how the shake-up at the highest levels of the Justice Department (DOJ) will impact special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

In their letter to Whitaker, the Democrats warned that a "constitutional crisis" could ensue if the Mueller probe is not protected, urging the new top cop to recuse himself and place Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein back in the supervisory role for the probe.

“There is little doubt that President Trump’s decision to force the firing of Attorney General Sessions places Special Counsel Mueller’s inquiry at grave risk,” Democrats' letter to Whitaker reads.
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They are threatening to shut down the government while Maxine Waters tells Wall Street “We are going to do to you what you have been doing to us”. So they actually do plan to hold the economy hostage while they work to destroy it through re regulation per Obamanomics and the House Finance committee.
 
Mach said:
It may be too late, or cause far more damage, if something happens. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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I remember at a time in the past, when we would get this way about who Obama was appointing, or what they were doing, you guys would tell us to settle down....Seems prudent at this point the other way too right?
 
Mach said:
****ing Duh, she was confirmed as the DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL. You know, 2nd in line if something happens to the AG?
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So what?

You responded before my edit to the previous post, so I'll repeat it here:

Being confirmed for some other office doesn't cut it.

If it did, there would have been no reason to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, as he was already confirmed for the Court of Appeals.

If it did, there would have been no reason to confirm William Rehnquist as Chief Justice, because he had already been confirmed as an associate Justice for the Supreme Court.

So no, being confirmed for Deputy Attorney General is not a confirmation for Acting Attorney General.


Again, executive order can move her to acting attorney general *without further senate confirmation*
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No. Not under Article II, and not by the argumentation of the NYT article.

And the "Conway" argument is specifically under Article II. In fact, it explicitly rejects any arguments under the Vacancies Reform Act and confines its argument entirely to Article II. (I already said this.)

Much of the commentary about Mr. Whitaker’s appointment has focused on all sorts of technical points about the Vacancies Reform Act and Justice Department succession statutes. But the flaw in the appointment of Mr. Whitaker, who was Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff at the Justice Department, runs much deeper. It defies 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.
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Under the article's argumentation, ANY principal officer is required to be confirmed by the Senate.

It says so in no uncertain terms:

But Professor Calabresi and Mr. Trump were right about the core principle. A principal officer must be confirmed by the Senate. And that has a very significant consequence today.
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THEY emphasized "must," not I.

The definition of a "principal officer," as given by the article:

What makes an officer a principal officer is that he or she reports only to the president. No one else in government is that person’s boss.
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The Deputy Attorney General is not that. Not being a principal officer, being confirmed for THAT position does not make one having been confirmed as a principal officer.

So indeed, under the article's own argument, in every way you look at it, the Acting Attorney General MUST be confirmed AS the Acting Attorney General.

Yates was NOT.


Furthermore, such appointments are made for people whose CURRENT JOB in that department required and received senate confirmation. Whittaker, was holding no such job at the time of his appointment.
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There is NO constitutional requirement of that, at all. And again, it's not what the article argued.
 
j-mac said:
Well, first it is temporary....I believe there are time limits for "acting" positions....Second, I put this complaining in the category of bitching and moaning about something that hasn't happened...Tell ya what Rex..Get back to me when he does something material that he isn't allowed to do...Then we can hash it out....mmmmmk?
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Your new avatar threw me; same old, same old rhetoric/goal post moving.....have a nice week-end!
 
Rexedgar said:
Your new avatar threw me; same old, same old rhetoric/goal post moving.....have a nice week-end!
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You too buddy....Come on back when you have enough respect to have a conversation....:2wave:
 
dcsports said:
Interesting... did something change to require confirmation that wasn't required before?

The Clovis issue is under review by the DOJ ethics department, which will make a recommendation. However, merely having a previous working relationship with a tangential witness does not automatically create a conflict of interest.
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I'm only going to assume, since there's no documentation online of his being 'Senate confirmed' for his position as the Attorney General of the Southern District of Iowa, that it didn't require confirmation by any U.S. Senate due to the fact he was 'appointed' by Presidential Bush versus being 'nominated' by a President for the same position. Of course an appointment and a nomination are two different things, the former I presume does not need a confirmation hearing while the latter does.

In addition to his association with Sam Clovis, (he was his campaign manager in 2014 when Clovis ran for state treasurer in Iowa), Sam Clovis was also listed an unnamed "campaign supervisor" in the indictment of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. In addition to those entanglements, Matthew Whitaker was a CNN contributor and as such was very critical of the Mueller.

Whitaker had also written an op-ed piece for CNN in August, 2017, just one month before coming aboard to the Justice Dept.

“It does not take a lawyer or even a former federal prosecutor like myself to conclude that investigating Donald Trump’s finances or his family’s finances falls completely outside the realm of his 2016 campaign and allegations that the campaign coordinated with the Russian government or anyone else,” “It is time for [Deputy AG Rod] Rosenstein, who is the acting attorney general for the purposes of this investigation to order Mueller to limit the scope of his investigation to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel,” he wrote. “If he doesn’t, then Mueller’s investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition.”

So as you can see, it's a little more complicated than merely having 'a working relationship' with Sam Clovis.
 
Mach said:
****ing Duh, she was confirmed as the DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL. You know, 2nd in line if something happens to the AG? Again, executive order can move her to acting attorney general *without further senate confirmation* The same cannot be said from the political appointment of Whittaker. Furthermore, such appointments are made for people whose CURRENT JOB in that department required and received senate confirmation. Whittaker, was holding no such job at the time of his appointment.
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As far as Whittaker is concerned, he is fully qualified as per the Vacancy Act.
 
Rexedgar said:
You find no problem with assigning a man who has opined negatively regarding an investigation, oversight of that investigation?

An investigation his boss was recused from?
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1) He hasn't been 'negative regarding the investigation'. He's questioned how the investigation has been handled, and made comments regarding wrapping it up -- which isn't a conflict of interest.

2) The DOJ ethics group is reviewing whether there is a conflict of interest, and will make a recommendation.
 
HumblePi said:
I'm only going to assume, since there's no documentation online of his being 'Senate confirmed' for his position as the Attorney General of the Southern District of Iowa, that it didn't require confirmation by any U.S. Senate due to the fact he was 'appointed' by Presidential Bush versus being 'nominated' by a President for the same position. Of course an appointment and a nomination are two different things, the former I presume does not need a confirmation hearing while the latter does.

In addition to his association with Sam Clovis, (he was his campaign manager in 2014 when Clovis ran for state treasurer in Iowa), Sam Clovis was also listed an unnamed "campaign supervisor" in the indictment of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. In addition to those entanglements, Matthew Whitaker was a CNN contributor and as such was very critical of the Mueller.

Whitaker had also written an op-ed piece for CNN in August, 2017, just one month before coming aboard to the Justice Dept.

“It does not take a lawyer or even a former federal prosecutor like myself to conclude that investigating Donald Trump’s finances or his family’s finances falls completely outside the realm of his 2016 campaign and allegations that the campaign coordinated with the Russian government or anyone else,” “It is time for [Deputy AG Rod] Rosenstein, who is the acting attorney general for the purposes of this investigation to order Mueller to limit the scope of his investigation to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel,” he wrote. “If he doesn’t, then Mueller’s investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition.”

So as you can see, it's a little more complicated than merely having 'a working relationship' with Sam Clovis.
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Rosenstein has a far greater conflict of interest. He was involved in the decision to terminate Comey. He was the one who signed off upon some of the FISA warrants. He was involved in the decisions of Mueller is investigating.

Whittaker opined that Mueller should stick to his mandate (ie. Russia and Trump colluding to flip the 2016 election) rather than going after crimes that have nothing to do with it. He suggested it would otherwise look political. Dissagree with it, but its hardly an unknown argument and scarcely a clause for claiming a conflict. The man has an opinion.
 
Athanasius68 said:
As far as Whittaker is concerned, he is fully qualified as per the Vacancy Act.
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j-mac said:
Well of course they didn't....Didn't we see this before? Comey? They wanted Sessions in for the reason that as 'recused' he can not properly oversee the SC....Now that there may be someone who will take oversight of Rosenstien at the very least, and has the final say of what happens to any report that Muller comes up with, they are screaming foul....But, nothing unconstitutional here...
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So, unless you would like to post your law degree here or give us some other support for the bolded statement, it stands incorrect. While the appointment MIGHT survive a challenge on its constitutionality, it ain't slam dunk that it would. Hence, it legitimacy remains questionable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/opinion/trump-attorney-general-sessions-unconstitutional.html

https://www.lawfareblog.com/matthew...ng-attorney-general-three-lingering-questions

https://www.govexec.com/management/...onstitutionality-trumps-new-acting-ag/152689/
 
Athanasius68 said:
Rosenstein has a far greater conflict of interest. He was involved in the decision to terminate Comey. He was the one who signed off upon some of the FISA warrants. He was involved in the decisions of Mueller is investigating.

Whittaker opined that Mueller should stick to his mandate (ie. Russia and Trump colluding to flip the 2016 election) rather than going after crimes that have nothing to do with it. He suggested it would otherwise look political. Dissagree with it, but its hardly an unknown argument and scarcely a clause for claiming a conflict. The man has an opinion.
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Rosenstein has been Robert Mueller's boss for going on two years now and if there had been even the slightest doubt about his motivation, the seething vile Republicans like Gym Jordan and Trey Gowdy, who browbeat and berated him during his appearance before the House Intel Committee would have made it their mission to have him removed.
 
HumblePi said:
Rosenstein has been Robert Mueller's boss for going on two years now and if there had been even the slightest doubt about his motivation, the seething vile Republicans like Gym Jordan and Trey Gowdy, who browbeat and berated him during his appearance before the House Intel Committee would have made it their mission to have him removed.
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It doesnt matter. The man is a potential witness. That makes him far more conflicted than Whittaker, who expressed a professional opinion that many people have echoed.
 
HumblePi said:
I'm only going to assume, since there's no documentation online of his being 'Senate confirmed' for his position as the Attorney General of the Southern District of Iowa, that it didn't require confirmation by any U.S. Senate due to the fact he was 'appointed' by Presidential Bush versus being 'nominated' by a President for the same position. Of course an appointment and a nomination are two different things, the former I presume does not need a confirmation hearing while the latter does.

In addition to his association with Sam Clovis, (he was his campaign manager in 2014 when Clovis ran for state treasurer in Iowa), Sam Clovis was also listed an unnamed "campaign supervisor" in the indictment of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. In addition to those entanglements, Matthew Whitaker was a CNN contributor and as such was very critical of the Mueller.

Whitaker had also written an op-ed piece for CNN in August, 2017, just one month before coming aboard to the Justice Dept.

“It does not take a lawyer or even a former federal prosecutor like myself to conclude that investigating Donald Trump’s finances or his family’s finances falls completely outside the realm of his 2016 campaign and allegations that the campaign coordinated with the Russian government or anyone else,” “It is time for [Deputy AG Rod] Rosenstein, who is the acting attorney general for the purposes of this investigation to order Mueller to limit the scope of his investigation to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel,” he wrote. “If he doesn’t, then Mueller’s investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition.”

So as you can see, it's a little more complicated than merely having 'a working relationship' with Sam Clovis.
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I see. I wouldn't take anything from wording on wikipedia. My assumption was that he was confirmed, since US Attorneys are confirmed. But perhaps there were different requirements at that time.

But again, it doesn't matter. He meets the qualifications under the presidential vacancies act for the temporary appointment, and Trump shouldn't have any trouble getting his permanent replacement approved.
 
Athanasius68 said:
It doesnt matter. The man is a potential witness. That makes him far more conflicted than Whittaker, who expressed a professional opinion that many people have echoed.
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What are you talking about that he's a "potential witness"? Witness to what?
 
dcsports said:
I see. I wouldn't take anything from wording on wikipedia. My assumption was that he was confirmed, since US Attorneys are confirmed. But perhaps there were different requirements at that time.

But again, it doesn't matter. He meets the qualifications under the presidential vacancies act for the temporary appointment, and Trump shouldn't have any trouble getting his permanent replacement approved.
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I completely disagree and half of Congress disagrees also. He's most certainly biased and therefore unqualified.
 
upsideguy said:
So, unless you would like to post your law degree here or give us some other support for the bolded statement, it stands incorrect. While the appointment MIGHT survive a challenge on its constitutionality, it ain't slam dunk that it would. Hence, it legitimacy remains questionable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/opinion/trump-attorney-general-sessions-unconstitutional.html

https://www.lawfareblog.com/matthew...ng-attorney-general-three-lingering-questions

https://www.govexec.com/management/...onstitutionality-trumps-new-acting-ag/152689/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/matthew-whittaker-jeff-sessions-replacement-excellent-choice/
 
HumblePi said:
What are you talking about that he's a "potential witness"? Witness to what?
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Rosenstein was involved in the firing of Comey. He was involved in seeking FISA warrant on Carter Page. In other words, he is involved in that which Mueller is investigating.
And remember... He was blocking Congress's inquiry into the investigation.
 
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