Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Appointment Is Unconstitutional, Former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese Tells Supreme Court

Thank goodness for the old school educated Americans. The country is under the boot of far-left, despotic morons.

Court filings coming fast and furious this week but this is a stunner.

Former AG Edwin Meese asks SCOTUS to deny Jack Smith's petition to expedite appeal of immunity ruling, argues Merrick Garland broke the law by appointing a special counsel w/o statutory authority: pic.twitter.com/bQotoykndS

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) December 21, 2023

Former Reagan AG Ed Meese and top constitutional law professors file brief telling Supreme Court that Smith appointment violated the Constitution’s appointments clause as his powers exceed those of a United States attorney.https://t.co/zKL0EL5LlY

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) December 21, 2023

Steven Calabresi is the Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where he specializes in constitutional law also teaches regularly at the Yale Law School wrote:

Private citizen Jack Smith lacks standing to petition the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari before judgement in United States v. Trump for the same reason I do. Jack Smith is in the eyes of the Supreme Court a private citizen not an officer of the United States. Standing issues need not be raised by the parties to a case nor can they be waived. The Supreme Court justices must address them sua sponte.

The Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon overlooked Leo Jaworski’s lack of standing because, if one consults the briefs in that case, one will find that no party ever raised the issue. The Court cursorily assumed Jaworski was legally appointed without ever examining the issue raised by me, former Attorney General Ed Meese, and Professor Gary Lawson. We discuss this issue at length in Steven G. Calabresi & Gary Lawson, Why Robert Mueller’s Appointment as Special Counsel Was Unlawful, 95 Notre Dame Law Review, 87, at pp. 118-125 (2019). The D.C. Circuit and District Courts have declined to readdress this issue because of erroneous precedent in the D.C. Circuit, which does not bind the Supreme Court, and in which the standing issue was never raised. See id., at 125-127.

A more recent D.C. Circuit and District Court affirmed the legality of Robert Muller’s appointment without a sustained response to our argument that none of the statutes cited by the Justice Department in support of the legality of Robert Mueller’s appointment. Jack Smith’s case is a new case.

Standing issues never go away but may be raised at any point in any litigation. The fact of the matter is that everything Jack Smith has done as Special Counsel, since his appointment on November 18, 2022 has been unconstitutional and is null and void. Anyone now in jail, or subject to a plea bargain, with Jack Smith can ask to be released because Jack Smith is, in truth, a. private citizen. The judge in the Florida District Court classified documents case is under the jurisdiction of the 11th Circuit and is not bound by D.C. Circuit precedent. Any litigant in a case before her can argue that Jack Smith is not a lawfully appointed officer of the United States.

Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Appointment Is Unconstitutional, Former Attorney General Tells Supreme Court

By: Bradley Jaye, Breitbart, 20 Dec 2023:

WASHINGTON, DC – Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel is unconstitutional and so the Supreme Court must reject his petition against Donald Trump, lawyers representing former Attorney General Ed Meese and two top constitutional scholars in the country argued in a brief filed on Wednesday.

Their amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief argues that Smith lacks authority to represent the United States by asking the Supreme Court to weigh in (called a petition for certiorari) because the office he holds has not been created by Congress and his appointment violates the “Appointments Clause” of the Constitution.

The filing essentially claims U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland improperly appointed Smith to an office that does not exist with authority Garland does not possess.
Hunter – WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 20: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on September 20, 2023 in Washington, DC. The committee is holding an oversight hearing on the U.S. Department of Justice. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Attorney General Merrick Garland (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Meese, Steven Calabresi, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society, and Gary Lawson, a prominent constitutional law professor, first argue that only Congress can create federal offices such as Smith currently holds, which Congress has not done.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese applauds as President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Meese, in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon

While the Constitution creates the offices of President and Vice President, Congress has the sole authority to create additional offices, because the Constitution says those offices must be “established by Law.” Congress previously passed a law to authorize a similar position called an “independent counsel,” but that statute expired in 1999.

Garland cannot hire a mere employee to perform tasks that Congress has not authorized, the attorneys write. Only an “officer” can hold such a significant level of authority. In creating the Department of Justice, Congress gave it certain powers by law, yet it authorized no office with all the powers of a U.S. Attorney that Garland has given Smith.

The amicus brief further argues, “Even if one somehow thinks that existing statutes authorize appointment of stand-alone special counsels with the full power of a U.S. Attorney, Smith was not properly appointed to such an ‘office.’” They assert even if special counsels were authorized by Congress, anyone in possession of such powers would require presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

Moreover, the brief argued that Smith has so much power, just like a U.S. Attorney, he is a “principal officer” under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which means he must first be nominated by the president and then confirmed by a majority of the U.S. Senate.

“Improperly appointed, he has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court than Bryce Harper, Taylor Swift, or Jeff Bezos,” they write.

Although these briefs focus on saying the Supreme Court should refuse Smith’s petition for the high court to take the case, its argument would mean that lower federal courts should dismiss all of Smith’s prosecutions, including all of his pending charges against Trump.

Meese served as Attorney General for President Ronald Reagan during a time when independent counsels were authorized by Congress and served a significant role.

The case is United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Snowedin.

4 months ago

Since when do the progressive, commie, demoncraps, and RINOs do anything that is Constitutional, even they take an oath to do so.

14

D

PatD

4 months ago

Then jackoff smith has been violating the LAWS!

10

turtlebrat

4 months ago

Reply to  PatD

and this jack sack of commie feces does not know jack squat nor do his masters about the law and care not

8

Satcatcher

4 months ago

Get that POS out of the courts.

8

Stephen Honig

4 months ago

There is no wisdom with the lefty schmucks.

3

william

4 months ago

Do I detect a quaver of fear from the geniuses of the right?

0