President Trump

[Meto]

Sessions was fired and a Trump loyalist has become the acting AG.

[Meto]

To clarify, Jeff Sessions was the Attorney General and had recused himself from the FBI's investigation into alleged collusion with Russia. Rod Rosenstein is the deputy AG and the investigation passed to his oversight. Trump was pissed that Sessions has recused himself. Trump loses the house, fires/asks Sessions to resign. Trump appoints Matthew Whitaker as acting AG. Whitaker has written Op-Eds in opposition to the investigation. Purview of the investigation moves from Rod Rosenstein to Whitaker. Whitaker has already stated that he will not recuse himself.

[WiseMarsellus]

i'm not actually sure the president can appoint an acting head of a department. it seems contrary to the appointments clause. i guess we'll see if mueller refuses to cooperate with whitaker's orders on those grounds

[Aglets]

Well Trump gets to appoint the permanent replacement right?

Guess the question is why he didn’t just start with Christie instead of waiting a few months first.

[WiseMarsellus]

the attorney general can only be appointed with the advice and consent of the senate. for the permanent positions this much is clear. as far as appointing interim attorney generals though, i actually don't know. but if the president can just appoint interim attorney generals at will what's to stop him from just doing that repeatedly and thus circumventing the appointments clause?

on the other hand, there has to be some kind of mechanism for an interim head of the departments. and i'm sure it's happened many times throughout history but i'm not aware of a court case concerning it. possibly because no one has had such incentive to challenge

[Aglets]

Didn’t Obama have two AGs?

Looking it up, it seems like Holder stayed in office until Lynch was confirmed by the senate. So I suppose it’s too late for that now. Maybe Christie will have to wait until January when the new Congress is seated?

[sac89837]

From what I understand, an acting Attorney General has to have been previously confirmed by the Senate for another position. So the Solicitor General or Deputy Attorney General could do it. However, he just fire the AG and replace him with someone random.

[mikefrench]

Did some Democrats lose any key races in WA?

We had a carbon tax on the ballot that failed by a somewhat surprisingly large margin. The bigger publicized congressional tossup (Rossi v Schrier) went D.

We had local protests in Port Angeles about the Mueller/Sessions issue yesterday as well.

[Hari Seldon]

From what I understand, an acting Attorney General has to have been previously confirmed by the Senate for another position. So the Solicitor General or Deputy Attorney General could do it. However, he just fire the AG and replace him with someone random.

There appears to be conflicting rules, and some of them are kind of old so the language is not super-duper 2018 terms clear (i.e. might need to be interpreted by the courts). One says Trump can appoint a guy to a position within a department if he has been working in the department for some amount of time (less than this one has) so it would be legal, but another rule says what you stated, that a position that reports directly to the president and no one else, like AG, has to be filled by somebody confirmed, and this guy has not been since 2004 when he was a US Attorney.

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[Hari Seldon]

Did some Democrats lose any key races in WA?

We had a carbon tax on the ballot that failed by a somewhat surprisingly large margin. The bigger publicized congressional tossup (Rossi v Schrier) went D.

We had local protests in Port Angeles about the Mueller/Sessions issue yesterday as well.

Lots of jokes on social media about how the #Resistance types coming out in support of Jeff Sessions is quite a plot twist.

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[Meto]

Did some Democrats lose any key races in WA?

We had a carbon tax on the ballot that failed by a somewhat surprisingly large margin. The bigger publicized congressional tossup (Rossi v Schrier) went D.

We had local protests in Port Angeles about the Mueller/Sessions issue yesterday as well.

Lots of jokes on social media about how the #Resistance types coming out in support of Jeff Sessions is quite a plot twist.

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More trolling by people intentionally misrepresenting their opponents position.

[Hobbie]

Why doesnt it just go to the deputy AG? Isn't he the deputy for a reason?

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[Hari Seldon]

Did some Democrats lose any key races in WA?

We had a carbon tax on the ballot that failed by a somewhat surprisingly large margin. The bigger publicized congressional tossup (Rossi v Schrier) went D.

We had local protests in Port Angeles about the Mueller/Sessions issue yesterday as well.

Lots of jokes on social media about how the #Resistance types coming out in support of Jeff Sessions is quite a plot twist.

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More trolling by people intentionally misrepresenting their opponents position.

No doubt, still a humorous characterization though.

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[BionicMan05]

Why doesnt it just go to the deputy AG? Isn't he the deputy for a reason?

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Probably because the deputy AG has often defended the Mueller investigation, while Whitaker has been very vocally against it and even laid out strategies for shutting it down without shutting it down (i.e. cut funding, stall paperwork, etc.). A lot of judicial and cabinet nominations make a lot more sense when seen through the lens of the president trying to move people into positions where they can either kill or hinder the numerous investigations into his activities.

[Aglets]

As I mentioned earlier, the reason I think we're stuck with this guy for a few months is maybe Trump feels that he might need the new Congress to get Christie approved. That makes the most sense to me given the available facts.

[Gergall]

It's Twitter, so you start with the bottom post and read up.

However in this case it makes about the same amount of sense backwards or forwards.

[Gergall]

[Aglets]

This is going to be a pretty pivotal few weeks. Trump seems to know it and is being even more defensive than normal.

[Hari Seldon]

Yes, it sucks because I was really hoping (and even expecting) that Trump would choose not to run in 2020. Now it sounds like he will need to win to run out the statute of limitations on the alleged campaign finance violations as prosecutors clearly have a hard-on to get him given the language in the Cohen pleas.

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[Gergall]

Now it sounds like he will need to win to run out the statute of limitations on the alleged campaign finance violations

But then what will he do about the new campaign finance violations he'll commit in the 2020 campaign?