Washington
\nUS Senate Democrats are considering legal action over President Donald Trump\u2019s appointment of a new acting attorney general, congressional sources said on Friday, as some outside experts called the move unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
Trump on Wednesday named Matthew Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was forced out after months of attacks by Trump for recusing himself from an ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n
The move made Whitaker supervisor of the investigation, which has hung over Trump\u2019s presidency. Whitaker has criticized the probe in the past as too wide-ranging, which has raised concerns among Democrats that Sessions\u2019 ouster and Whitaker\u2019s appointment might be precursors to Trump moving to end it.<\/p>\n
Senate Democrats were considering suing Trump, the sources said, on the grounds that, in naming Whitaker, the president ignored a statutory line of succession at the Justice Department and deprived senators of their constitutional \u201cadvice and consent\u201d role on some presidential appointments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only two paths to that office are regular succession, and advice (and) consent,\u201d said a source close to the Senate Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told Reuters late on Friday he was \u201cconsidering action that might be brought against an interim appointment that violates the normal statutory line of succession and raises very serious constitutional questions.\u201d He said he was speaking only for himself and he hoped Republicans might join as plaintiffs if a lawsuit goes forward.<\/p>\n
The Appointments Clause of the US Constitution states that some senior government officials, known as \u201cprincipal officers,\u201d must be confirmed by the Senate.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley said Trump had the authority to appoint Whitaker as acting attorney general temporarily, even though he had not been confirmed by the Senate.<\/p>\n
Such appointments can be done for senior officials who have worked in the department for at least 90 days and can last for up to 210 days, spokesman George Hartmann said.<\/p>\n
As the minority party in the Senate, Democrats might need some Republican support to have legal standing to sue Trump under the Appointments Clause, said Andrew Wright, who was a White House lawyer under former President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
The source close to the Senate Judiciary Committee said Democrats were unsure whether they would reach out to Republicans to join the lawsuit, but added it was \u201cnot likely.\u201d Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who earlier this year introduced legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is conducting the probe, said Whitaker did not pose a threat to his work.<\/p>\n
John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said \u201cthe Supreme Court made clear that the Attorney General is a principal officer\u201d in a 1998 case.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, Whitaker cannot serve as acting Attorney General … Any other officer in the Justice Department who was appointed through advice and consent can serve, including the Deputy AG, the solicitor general, and the assistant AGs,\u201d said Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington US Senate Democrats are considering legal action over President Donald Trump\u2019s appointment of a new acting attorney general, congressional sources said on Friday, as some outside experts called the move unconstitutional. Trump on Wednesday named Matthew Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was forced out after months of attacks by Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46783,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46781\/revisions\/46783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}