Legal Experts Challenge the Legitimacy of Special Counsel Jack Smith
The hopes of leftists and other anti-Trumpers maybe quashed next month when the case of the alleged mishandling of classified documents by President Trump is heard in a Florida court for possible dismissal on a key point – Jack Smith’s unconstitutional appointment as a Special Counsel.
Earlier this month Judge Aileen Cannon earned backlash from the anti-Trump media as she indefinitely suspended Smith’s classified documents case against President Trump. Publications like Newsweek expressed the concern that the trial may not happen before November 2024 and Trump may get reelected to kill the case against him. Conservative commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza then opined in a video that Smith himself is on the defense now.
D’Souza also questioned the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment as a Special Counsel. Following up on this thread, The Epoch Times reported on Monday (May 20) that Judge Cannon will hear a motion on June 22 to dismiss the classified documents case against President Trump on the ground of unlawful appointment of Special Counsel Smith.
The said motion, filed in February this year, seeks to dismiss the classified documents case against President Trump because it violated the Appointment Clause. The Epoch Times wrote:
They argued that Mr. Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause, and there is no permanent funding allocated to a special counsel office, therefore the indictment should be dismissed.
Citing legal experts, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, the story discusses the nature of the Special Counsel’s office and authority with focus on the difference between “inferior” and “superior” officers. An inferior officer can be appointed by a department head but superior officer appointments “have to be established by Congress through law, and have their appointments confirmed by the Senate.” As questioned via a number of amici briefs, including one by former AG Meese, Mr. Smith wields the power of a “superior officer” – also called a “principal officer” – and therefore could not be legitimately appointed unilaterally by the head of the Justice Department.
One amicus brief, filed in March this year by Professor Seth Barrett Tillman, contends that Mr. Smith is really not an officer at DOJ – inferior or superior – but is just a DOJ employee at best. The brief by Tillman reads:
The Special Counsel, who holds a non-continuous position, is not an “Officer of the United States,” but is, at most, an “employee of the United States,” who cannot exercise the “significant authority” of a United States Attorney.
These challenges to Jack Smith’s legitimacy as a Special Counsel with prosecutorial powers come at a time when the Democrat-led lawfare against President Trump is on the back foot in both New York and Georgia. In the so-called hush-money case in NY, prosecution’s star witness Michael Cohen admitted this week to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump Organization. The admission during the cross-examination is widely seen as the last nail in the coffin of Cohen’s credibility as a witness.
In Georgia, the so-called RICO case against President Trump is also in peril as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now facing an appeal by President Trump to remove her from the RICO case. Earlier this month, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to hear President Trump’s appeal to disqualify DA Willis in the so-called election interference case. A court date for the hearing has not yet been set.
“The hopes of leftists and other anti-Trumpers maybe quashed next month when the case of the alleged mishandling of classified documents by President Trump is heard in a Florida court for possible dismissal on a key point – Jack Smith’s unconstitutional appointment as a Special Counsel.”
I don’t know how they do it in Pakistan, but in America, the legal system is supposed to be apolitical and I tire of outsiders like Dempsey trying to tell us different, constantly pitting us against each other for his own personal gain.
This is not about leftists, anti-Trumpers or even Trump. This is about a President who took a moving van of documents, including top secret nuclear ones, and hid them from the National Archives refusing to give them up. In America, we take that man to court to hash it out, legally, according to the law without political bias that a cheap foreign failed journalist piece of crap cannot tell Americans different. We also use “may be,” not maybe — some writer you are.
Unless he’s quoting Russia Today, he can’t even get his facts straight. They will not hear the “case of alleged mishandling of classified documents” next month, probably not until next year. Idiot. Maybe English may be his second language after communist.
I tire of outsiders from terrorist-ridden hell holes hiding out in America and telling us about ourselves. Does this guy even have a green card?
This story, and this guy, are not even worth the scan, much less the read.
Under the Biden regime our Constitution has been under consistent attack – shame on you liberal / communists for your lack of integrity! While the communists in Cuba and Venezuela have demonstrated how to manipulate the legal system to claim power – we are neither – and have a Constitution and a separation of Powers to protect us! When the Supreme Court said no to the student loan bailout – Our President gave them the middle Finger! Like the illegal immigrants gave to the NYPD !
One point the legal spurts regularly fail to see is the double standards clause the courts use in their choices of who to harass by so-called justice system.
The high faluting judges can bloviating all they want, but when you watch who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t and how it is decided by political association, you can understand that the corrupt system is being used! Remember unequal justice is no justice at all!
Looks like a lack of standing by the prosecutor which should (but may not) lead to dismissal of the charges on that ground. Same should happen in the immunity case now pending in SCOTUS where Trump’s lawyer responded to a question by answering that he supported the view.s set out in the Meese et al amici brief.