This NY Times piece is really good, but unfortunately confirms our worst suspicions. I was kinda surprised to hear that Don McGahn was in favor of appointing Whitaker as AG, I've always considered him one of the most sane lawyers in Trump's orbit, and not just for leaving. I bet Whitaker hangs on for about three Scaramuccis. For anyone still using the metric system, that's 30 days. Which is funnier: Trump saying “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.” a month before saying "I don't know the guy.", or him claiming that he doesn't know the man he just appointed to arguably the most powerful legislative office in the world? Meanwhile, Turley's new piece of hot garbage argues that Whitaker's appointment also gives Roger Stone's lawyer, Miller, a better basis for questioning Mueller's legitimacy: I mean, I'm sure Mueller has several contingency plans, but did we learn absolutely nothing from Watergate? Already, per the WSJ, we have a president that knowingly committed a felony violation of campaign finance law, and there is NO political backlash from the GOP? I totally get that it's DoJ policy to never indict a sitting president, but the statute of limitations expires five years from the infraction. So IF Trump isn't impeached, and then loses in 2020, the prosecution would need evidence from after January 20th, 2016 to convict him. I hope they have it. I feel like more has happened in the last week than just about 99% of America has been able to piece together, and I'm losing my goddamn mind. Edit: btw, I am not implicitly claiming to have pieced together much of anything.In other words, by appointing Whitaker, Trump has undermined the position of his own Justice Department in court in the Andrew Miller case without directly firing Mueller. If Whitaker is left in place, and Trump has said there is “no rush” to fill the post permanently, the court could conclude that Mueller is now exercising powers reserved to confirmed “principal officers.” He could be barred from exercising those powers until an attorney general is nominated and confirmed.
Don McGahn is a tool. He's just a tool with slightly more interest in formality than the rest of the swamp. The rest of it is inconsequential. In the face of Congress’s inability to obtain evidence that the grand jury well knew incriminated the president, we prepared the grand jury report to Judge Sirica and requested that he use his plenary authority to transmit that evidence to the House Judiciary Committee, which had already commenced a proceeding to consider Mr. Nixon’s impeachment. It was carefully written to avoid any interpretations or conclusions about what the evidence showed or what action the committee should take. The report contained a series of spare factual statements annotated with citations to relevant transcripts of tapes and grand jury testimony. Copies of those tapes and transcripts were included as attachments. The grand jury has been empaneled since August 2017. He could die in a fire right now and things keep a rollin' along.Although Mr. Cox had been fired, his staff — duly appointed federal prosecutors — had not. The grand jury, as an arm of the judicial branch, could not be fired by the president. Indeed, Judge John Sirica of the United States District Court immediately summoned the grand juries (there were two) to his courtroom and exhorted them to continue to pursue their investigations and assured them that they could rely on the court to safeguard their rights and preserve the integrity of their proceedings.