Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised a question Thursday that goes to the heart of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s charges against former President Donald Trump.
“Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?”
Thomas asked Trump attorney John Sauer on Thursday during a nearly three-hour session at the Supreme Court.
Sauer told Thomas that, “we totally agree with the analysis provided by Attorney General Meese [III] and Attorney General Mukasey.”
We hadn’t raised it yet in this case when this case went up on appeal,” Sauer said.
“But neither Smith nor the position of special counsel under which he purportedly acts meets those criteria.
He resigned from the private sector after then-President Trump nominated a different prosecutor as U.S. attorney for the middle district of Tennessee.
Smith was a private citizen when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him as special counsel to investigate Trump in 2022.
A crucial question regarding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s allegations against former President Donald Trump was posed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Thursday.
The question of whether Smith and the Office of Special Counsel have the right to file any charges at all is another matter that the high court was debating as it examined Trump’s claim that he is exempt from prosecution for actions he took while in office.
Thomas questioned Trump lawyer John Sauer during a nearly three-hour meeting at the Supreme Court on Thursday. “Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?” Thomas asked Sauer.
The Supreme Court is now debating Trump’s claims that presidential immunity bars the prosecution of allegations that the former president unlawfully attempted to rig the 2020 election. Sauer responded that Trump’s lawyers had not “directly” brought up that issue in the case.
Thomas was informed by Sauer that “we completely concur with the analysis presented by Attorney Generals Meese [III] and Mukasey. “.
In the Trump Documents case, Special Counsel Jack Smith retaliates against the judge for making a “fundamentally flawed legal promise.”.
One of the arguments made by the special counsel is that we ought to have this presumption of regularity, which brings us to a crucial point. The fact that someone who was never nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate is now exercising an extraordinary prosecutorial power is brought into question. We therefore support that stance. Upon the case’s appeal, we hadn’t brought it up yet, according to Sauer.
Meese and Mukasey questioned whether “Jack Smith has lawful authority to undertake the ‘criminal prosecution'” of Trump in a 42-page amicus brief that was submitted to the high court in March. Both Meese and Mukasey, former U.S. s. attorneys general — citing the fact that Smith was never confirmed by the Senate to any position — claimed that Smith and the Office of Special Counsel itself lack the jurisdiction to bring charges.
Meese and Mukasey contended that federal prosecutions “may be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices.”. However, neither Smith nor the role of special counsel that he ostensibly holds fulfills those requirements. His great power comes from his deliberate lack of accountability to anyone. That poses a significant threat to the rule of law, regardless of one’s opinions about the former president Trump or the actions on January 6, 2021, which Smith is contesting in the main lawsuit. “.”.
Attorney for President Trump and Supreme Court Justice spar over the possibility of prosecuting a president who “ordered” a coup.
Meese claims that the main issue is that Smith’s Senate confirmation as a U.S. senator was never granted. S. lawyer, and no other law permits the U.S. S. the attorney general to designate any individual as special counsel. Smith appeared to be acting U. S. , but he was never considered for the role of attorney for a Tennessee federal district in 2017. Following the nomination of another prosecutor by then-President Trump, he announced his resignation from the private sector. s. lawyer for Tennessee’s Middle District.
Meese and Mukasey contended that the special counsel is far more powerful than any government official who has not been confirmed by the Senate because he has broad authority to convene grand juries and make prosecutorial decisions without consulting the attorney general or the White House.
In the charges against Trump in the classified documents case, which Smith also brought before a federal court in Florida, Sauer and Trump’s other attorneys questioned the validity of Smith’s appointment.
Contrary to Trump’s claims that the federal charges against him are politically motivated, Trump’s attorneys asserted in a March court filing in Florida that the special counsel’s office argues in federal court that Smith is wholly independent of the White House and Garland. Nevertheless, the lawyers for the special counsel maintain that Smith reports to the attorney general and is not therefore subject to Senate confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. s. Constitution.
SPECIAL COUNSEL IN TRUMP CASE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, ACCORDING TO FORMER REAGAN AG.
In the filing, Trump’s attorneys stated that there is “significant tension between the Office’s assurances to that court that Smith is independent, and not prosecuting the Republican nominee for President at the direction of the Biden Administration, and the Office’s assurance here that Smith is not independent and is instead so thoroughly supervised and accountable to President Biden and Attorney General Garland that this Court should not be concerned about such tremendous power being exercised to alter the trajectory of the ongoing presidential election.”.
In response to Trump’s claims in the Florida case, the office of the special counsel maintained that the attorney general “has the statutory authority to appoint a Special Prosecutor” and that the Supreme Court even upheld that authority “in closely analogous circumstances nearly 50 years ago” — in a 1974 case that involved a challenge to the prosecutor looking into the late President Richard Nixon.
In their brief, Meese and Mukasey stated that the Nixon case did not apply because it “focused on the President’s relationship with the Department of Justice as an organization, rather than the President’s relationship with any particular actor ostensibly appointed by DOJ.”. ****.
The two also acknowledged that special counsel investigations are frequently warranted and necessary, but they also said that “the Attorney General cannot designate as Special Counsel someone who has never been confirmed by the Senate as a substitute United States Attorney. Therefore, Smith’s appointment and all of the actions that followed, such as his prosecution of former President Trump, were illegal. “.
When Smith was designated as special counsel to look into Trump in 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, he was a private citizen.
Prior to being appointed as special counsels, the Senate confirmed David Weiss, the head of the Hunter Biden investigation, John Durham, the head of the Trump-Russia probe, and Robert Hur, the head of the Biden investigation into improper handling of classified material.
A Florida court has not yet made a decision on Trump’s request to have the case involving the classified documents dismissed because he believes Smith was appointed improperly.
Before the court’s term ends in June, a decision on Trump’s claims of immunity is anticipated.
