And now that I’ve read the thread, my reaction is the same. She is basically saying this will all be okay because our institutions and the rule of law will save us. She still believes we are dealing with a President or political party acting in accordance with the norms and traditions of our democracy.
Like all authoritarians, they do not care about our institutions or our rule of law. Our institutions will not save us. That folks don’t understand the truth in this warning after two years is an indication of exactly how much trouble we’re in.
What a one-sided view. If the guy is a slimeball fine, but to categorize that as Whitaker threatening someone is silly. Crap like that causes actual issues to be taken less seriously.
Stuff happening today, tomorrow and Friday depending on where you are. MoveOn servers are being totally slammed, probably a good sign.
Maggie being Maggie (tweet). Part of the two-parter tweet was apparently deleted, but the full text is:
Some perspective on Sessions and Russia probe/his role protecting it - he didn’t recuse right away and only did after it was reported by WaPo that he hadn’t been forthcoming about his contacts w Russian ambassador during his senate hearing. In addition to that, tomorrow there will be marches nationally organized by progressives to protest the firing of an AG who also advocated for immigration policies that progressives have denounced for nearly two years. The times have created an up/down refeeendum on a lot of ppl
Lawyers get to pick and choose their clients. They’re not like doctors treating anyone who is injured. When an organization is clearly criminal, no reputable lawyer will ever represent them. And no reputable lawyer will ever become counsel for a clearly criminal corporation, either.
Of course a suspect is entitled to representation in criminal court from a public defender, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with a given lawyer’s decision to take on a civil client or indeed a criminal client for pay.
You say that, but I’m covering a situation where a guy has not only been acting blatantly illegally (and has been referred for prosecution by a judge), but hasn’t been paying his advisors, including lawyers, for a year now. Yet he still seems to manage to get reputable firms to represent him in civil litigation, at least for a month or two. It’s truly baffling to me why they’re not doing even basic due diligence on him.
So how freaked out is everyone about Whitaker at this point?
There seem to be some protests being organized
and 5000+ have signed up for Downtown L.A., which seems pretty good considering the short notice.
Part of me is like, ‘he hasn’t fired Mueller yet, don’t get your panties in a bunch’ and the other part is ‘I’m sick of this death-by-a-thousand-cuts bullshit, when are we going to take the streets to save our democracy???!!!1111!!’
I mean, the acting attorney general is a guy who is on the record as calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt. This feels like one of those signposts about which, in retrospect, people will wonder why more wasn’t done at the time.
That said, I really don’t want to schlep downtown in 5PM traffic and deal with parking etc. And then I feel like a shit for even thinking that.
I feel like Schrodinger’s Citizen, endlessly oscillating between ‘IT IS TIME TO SAVE THE REPUBLIC!’ and ‘eh, could be worse.’ It’s exhausting.
President Trump, however, has said that he will soon—if he has not done so already—direct Matthew Whitaker to perform the AG’s functions and duties, thereby displacing Rosenstein. As soon as Trump formally directs Whitaker to do so (yesterday afternoon’s tweet presumably didn’t do the trick), Whitaker presumably will take over for Rosenstein in the performance of all those functions and duties. And, just to be clear, that’s a very big deal because the Attorney General is statutorily assigned to perform (or delegate to others) almost all of the functions and duties of the Department of Justice. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 509.
What’s Trump’s authority for superseding the AG Succession statute? He’s undoubtedly invoking the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (VRA), which provides (5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(3)) that the President “may direct an officer or employee of [an] Executive agency to perform the functions and duties of [a] vacant office,” provided that the officer or employee has served, for at least 90 days during the year before the vacancy, in a position for which the pay is at least the level of GS-15—a criterion that Matthew Whitaker satisfies.
The Department of Justice’s formal view is that the VRA provides the President with an alternative authority, in addition to the AG Succession Act, to designate who shall perform the AG’s functions and duties during a vacancy in the office. Thus, for example, when AG Alberto Gonzales resigned in 2007, President George W. Bush named the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, Peter Keisler, to be the Acting Attorney General, when the AG Succession Order in effect at the time, issued pursuant to the AG Succession Act, would have assigned those functions to the Solicitor General, then Paul Clement.
As far as I know, however, the “appointment” of Whitaker would be the first time in U.S. history that the President has designated as an “acting” Attorney General someone who was not then serving in an office to which he or she was appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
Without engaging in a full analysis of Whitaker’s recusal obligations, at a minimum it is clear that his past statements regarding the conduct of the special counsel’s investigation potentially “raise a question regarding his impartiality” under the catch-all provision that merits consultation with career Justice Department ethics officials. Likewise, his personal relationship with Clovis at a minimum raises questions that may implicate the department’s recusal provision. Whether he is obligated to recuse may turn on facts—such as the nature of his relationship with Clovis and whether Clovis is a witness, subject or target of the investigation—that are not publicly known. But the public facts make clear that Whitaker must consult with career department ethics officials regarding his participation in connection with the special counsel’s investigation before taking any steps to participate in that investigation. As highlighted here, Whitaker may also have other issues involving personal or political relationships that require ethics advice, depending on his relationship with Sessions and other potential witnesses to the special counsel investigation, as well as his past political activities.
Worthwhile piece, but this line did elicit a sort of undead chuckle from the innards of my soul:
Because Mr. Whitaker has not undergone the process of Senate confirmation, there has been no mechanism for scrutinizing whether he has the character and ability to evenhandedly enforce the law in such a position of grave responsibility.
