Justice Thomas Scrutinizes Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Appointment

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised some questions in regards to the legality of particular counsel Jack Smith’s appointment throughout oral arguments final week relating to presidential immunity claims made by legal professionals for Donald Trump.

“Thomas has asked former President Donald Trump’s lawyers about whether they challenged special counsel Jack Smith’s authority to bring charges against the president,” The Epoch Times reported on Sunday.

“During the hearing, Justice Thomas asked John Sauer, the attorney who represented President Trump in court, ‘Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?’ Mr. Smith was appointed to the case by Attorney General Merrick Garland,” the outlet continued.

Sauer talked about that Trump’s attorneys haven’t “directly” raised such considerations within the ongoing case on the Supreme Court. However, “it points to a very important issue here, because one of [the prosecution’s] arguments is, of course, that we should have this presumption of regularity,” he stated in response to Thomas’ question.

“That runs into the reality that we have here an extraordinary prosecutorial power being exercised by someone who was never nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate at any time,” he stated. “We hadn’t raised it yet in this case when this case went up on appeal.”

Sauer went on to inform the affiliate justice that he agrees with the “analysis provided by Attorney General [Edwin] Meese and Attorney General [Michael B.] Mukasey,” a reference to an amicus brief the 2 former attorneys common submitted to the Supreme Court on March 19.

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The two former attorneys common famous that no matter what anybody might take into consideration the immunity difficulty, Smith “does not have authority to conduct the underlying prosecution.”

“Those actions can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices. Smith wields tremendous power, and effectively answers to no one,” they wrote.

“However, neither Smith nor the position of special counsel under which he purportedly acts meets those criteria. And that is a serious problem for the rule of law, whatever one may think of the conduct at issue in Smith’s prosecution,” the 2 AGs added.

Garland cited a lot of statutes when he appointed Garland. But the 2 former AGs argued none of them even “remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen or government employee to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.”

The two attorneys common additional famous that there are cases the place the appointment of a particular counsel could be appropriate, emphasizing that the U.S. Constitution permits them.

But “the Attorney General cannot appoint someone never confirmed by the Senate, as a substitute United States Attorney under the title ‘special counsel,’” they added.

“Smith’s appointment was thus unlawful, as are all actions flowing from it, including his prosecution of former President Trump,” they stated.

One political analyst believes that Trump’s authorized workforce had a great day on Thursday arguing the difficulty of presidential immunity earlier than the nation’s highest court docket.

Writing in The Atlantic, senior editor Ronald Brownstein’s piece “Trump Is Getting What He Wants” concluded that the previous president will seemingly not be tried in federal courts earlier than the November election.

Brownstein mentioned his conclusions in an interview with CNN.

“Political analyst Ron Brownstein’s new piece out in The Atlantic is about the Supreme Court‘s impact on Trump‘s future and the future of the presidency…let‘s start there. Ron, because after yesterday‘s Supreme Court arguments, you concluded that Trump is getting what he wants and more how and why,” requested host Kate Bolduan

“Well, look in practical, your attorney in the near term, what he‘s getting is we‘re kind of getting numb to this, but that at that hearing yesterday, five of the Republican-appointed justices, really all of them except Amy Coney Barrett, gave very clear signals that they are going to protect the Republican presidential nominee from a trial before the November election on the charges that this poll and other polls show are the most serious is to the American people,” Brownstein claimed.

“I mean, in practical terms, at almost any of the rulings that seemed possible out of that hearing are going to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a trial on whether Trump tried to subvert the last election before he faces voters in the next election,” he continued.

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