When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he was appointing David Weiss as special counsel, he failed to mention § 600.3(c) of the Code of Federal Regulations entitled "Qualifications of the Special Counsel." These qualifications include the following: "The special counsel shall be selected from
Merrick Garland's action as Attorney General prove that he would have been a partisan member of the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell was correct in not allowing Garland's nomination to be acted upon.
The pertinent provision is in Paragraph (a) of Sect. 600.3, actually. There is no Paragraph (c) in that section.
One might infer from the resultant media hue and cry that the pocket veto by a Republican-majority Senate of the nomination of Garland for the Supreme Court, which Obama submitted in the last year of his second term as POTUS, violated some well-established protocol, but that's not so. No Supreme Court nomination submitted by a lame-duck President in the last year of his final term has ever been confirmed by a Senate controlled by the opposition party.
Respect your analysis to the hilt Professor Dershowitz but, from the start, Attorney General Garland has appeared to be the opposite of neutral. As a non-lawyer, and an independent minded citizen, he reminds me of Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean. I don’t presume to know the real man, but his public persona repels and frightens me.
"Here we have what appears to be a clear rule using the word "shall" rather than a more permissive word such as "may." The regulation on its face seems mandatory, and not advisory." 100% correct. This is an illegal political move designed purely to obstruct Congressional inquiries. If under questioning, Weiss can now refuse to answer and claim that the matter is "under investigation", putting off any Biden investigations forever. After all, he slow walked previous Hunter investigations, concocted a sweetheart deal, and allowed statute of limitations to expire. The DOJ and Weiss are not stupid people, this is NOT an accident or an oversight, or a mistake, it is directly purposeful, quite deliberate, obstruction of justice. Again protecting the Bidens.
My deep respect for Professor Dershowitz leaves me puzzled when I remember him saying, in his podcast nearly 2 years ago, that he thought Merrick Garland was a fine choice for Attorney General, & would have been a fine appointment to the Supreme Court. And that he'd known Joe Biden for decades & thought he'd be a good President.
Yes! Barr did the *exact* same thing when he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham and I don’t recall Republicans, Dershowitz , or anyone else crying foul.
Maybe because there was no apparent reason to doubt Durham's bona fides -- e.g., signing a sweetheart plea bargain with the son of the Attorney General's boss.
Curious that the comment is inflammatory to you. Seems matter of fact to me. Not an attorney. Not in the government. But recently I’m more and more of the mind that prosecutorial decision in America are intended to ultimately be political. Attorneys general are generally political positions spanning local to federal. Perhaps the author’s idea is a way to rebalance some of that political basis between executive and legislative branches. More blinding for lady justice is a good thing.
Alan Dershowitz wrote, "Garland Illegally Appointed Weiss as Special Counsel"
I think your evaluation of this is spot on.
In my opinion; Garland knows the law, this is not a simple error that can be swept under the rug with rationalizations, Garland intentionally broken the law while in the office of the Attorney General of the United States of America, this is an impeachable offense under the United States Constitution. Garland crossed the line and should be impeached and David Weiss status as special counsel should be immediately revoked.
"There comes a point when a system becomes so corrupt that the corruption becomes purposely blatant because the corruption itself becomes an instrument of power, and that's where we are with the DOJ. Ever since Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal collapsed in court when the Judge realized that they has shoehorned in an immunity clause in a place we/she wasn't supposed to see it and couldn't do anything about it once it was in place, the question whether the Biden's DOJ is corrupt is no longer a question, it's actually an established fact." Andrew Klavan
There are too many things that Garland and his DOJ have done in the last few years that shown that he and the Department of Justice are corrupted and blatantly partisan in their wielding of "justice", this illegal action is the proverbial straw. Garland and his DOJ are doing the things that are done in Banana Republics and their actions are encouraging others to do the same.
The posited solution laid out in the last paragraph is interesting. When I joined the Criminal Section of the Justice Department's Tax Division in the early '90s, we had such a separation: the Assistant AG and two of the Deputy Asst. AGs were political appointees; the third Deputy was a career prosecutor overseeing criminal cases, and it was he who hired me. I was told that the arrangement had been instituted to prevent politically motivated prosecutions in the wake of Nixon-era abuses. It worked fine for a while, but eventually the third Deputy position reverted to one of political patronage.
More and more conspiracy theories from a man, Alan Dershowitz, who needs and desires to regain, or maintain, a relevancy in the public eye. When one thinks of the law today in relevant terms, one thinks of corruption and political science majors as undergrad coursework for lawyers (the easiest curriculum in academics and at Harvard with its grade inflation, anyone and their couch can get straight A's). While most Americans have zero access to justice, especially in civil matters, when the government forces the public to adhere to the legal system and laughingly get quotes from these lawyers for $500-1000 per hour fees to sit around and make up nonsense revelations as Dershowitz does.
I have never met a smart lawyer. Have you? Put them in a chemistry or physics class and they dwindle down to crying.
This is what needs to be done. For the red states that feel strongly about the constitution, will have to disenfranchise themselves from the rest of the union and come together as a divided union and leave the blue states for themselves. The democratic/ Communist party will not negotiate anything and will not yield . Time for a huge divorce and I guarantee that will bring panic to the democratic / communist party. They know they can not survive on their own.
These United States were meant to be one people. Not sure whether Red or Blue it is you are advocating to disenfranchise, but it might be an acceptable premise for Blue. Forget Red States. We will claim our founding documents, and live free or die.
You're presuming that this is a prosecution instead of a persecution. Were it the former, an outside special counsel would be required in the interests of justice. Since it is the latter, a special counsel from inside is required in the interests of politics.
Like so much else these days (Left and to a lesser extend Right): "we're going to break all the rules in order to save the country from someone who will break all the rules." This lie is getting a little stale.
To quote Judge Chamberlain Haller: “That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought out objection...overruled.” From the lack of action on the part of Republicans, no one cares apparently. This entire “investigation” is a farce and will come to nothing.
Seems to me like Garland was instead following § 600.2(b) and just directing the previous initial investigation be continued in order to be better informed... Your final argument to divide the Justice Department into two parts is rather inflammatory, which I assume you know.
600.2(b), which provides that an AJ may order an initial investigation "to better inform the decision" as to whether a Special Counsel should be appointed, is inapposite, as Hunter's tax dodges have been under investigation for nearly five years and Garland has purported to appoint Weiss as Special Counsel.
Merrick Garland's action as Attorney General prove that he would have been a partisan member of the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell was correct in not allowing Garland's nomination to be acted upon.
The pertinent provision is in Paragraph (a) of Sect. 600.3, actually. There is no Paragraph (c) in that section.
One might infer from the resultant media hue and cry that the pocket veto by a Republican-majority Senate of the nomination of Garland for the Supreme Court, which Obama submitted in the last year of his second term as POTUS, violated some well-established protocol, but that's not so. No Supreme Court nomination submitted by a lame-duck President in the last year of his final term has ever been confirmed by a Senate controlled by the opposition party.
Respect your analysis to the hilt Professor Dershowitz but, from the start, Attorney General Garland has appeared to be the opposite of neutral. As a non-lawyer, and an independent minded citizen, he reminds me of Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean. I don’t presume to know the real man, but his public persona repels and frightens me.
"Here we have what appears to be a clear rule using the word "shall" rather than a more permissive word such as "may." The regulation on its face seems mandatory, and not advisory." 100% correct. This is an illegal political move designed purely to obstruct Congressional inquiries. If under questioning, Weiss can now refuse to answer and claim that the matter is "under investigation", putting off any Biden investigations forever. After all, he slow walked previous Hunter investigations, concocted a sweetheart deal, and allowed statute of limitations to expire. The DOJ and Weiss are not stupid people, this is NOT an accident or an oversight, or a mistake, it is directly purposeful, quite deliberate, obstruction of justice. Again protecting the Bidens.
My deep respect for Professor Dershowitz leaves me puzzled when I remember him saying, in his podcast nearly 2 years ago, that he thought Merrick Garland was a fine choice for Attorney General, & would have been a fine appointment to the Supreme Court. And that he'd known Joe Biden for decades & thought he'd be a good President.
William Barr appointed John Durham as a Special Counsel when Durham was a U.S. Attorney, and thus Durham was an officer of the U.S. Government.
Yes! Barr did the *exact* same thing when he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham and I don’t recall Republicans, Dershowitz , or anyone else crying foul.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/unpacking-the-hunter-biden-special-counsel-announcement
Maybe because there was no apparent reason to doubt Durham's bona fides -- e.g., signing a sweetheart plea bargain with the son of the Attorney General's boss.
They have been blatantly Ignoring the law and the Constitution for ages now.
Curious that the comment is inflammatory to you. Seems matter of fact to me. Not an attorney. Not in the government. But recently I’m more and more of the mind that prosecutorial decision in America are intended to ultimately be political. Attorneys general are generally political positions spanning local to federal. Perhaps the author’s idea is a way to rebalance some of that political basis between executive and legislative branches. More blinding for lady justice is a good thing.
Alan Dershowitz wrote, "Garland Illegally Appointed Weiss as Special Counsel"
I think your evaluation of this is spot on.
In my opinion; Garland knows the law, this is not a simple error that can be swept under the rug with rationalizations, Garland intentionally broken the law while in the office of the Attorney General of the United States of America, this is an impeachable offense under the United States Constitution. Garland crossed the line and should be impeached and David Weiss status as special counsel should be immediately revoked.
"There comes a point when a system becomes so corrupt that the corruption becomes purposely blatant because the corruption itself becomes an instrument of power, and that's where we are with the DOJ. Ever since Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal collapsed in court when the Judge realized that they has shoehorned in an immunity clause in a place we/she wasn't supposed to see it and couldn't do anything about it once it was in place, the question whether the Biden's DOJ is corrupt is no longer a question, it's actually an established fact." Andrew Klavan
There are too many things that Garland and his DOJ have done in the last few years that shown that he and the Department of Justice are corrupted and blatantly partisan in their wielding of "justice", this illegal action is the proverbial straw. Garland and his DOJ are doing the things that are done in Banana Republics and their actions are encouraging others to do the same.
100% correct!
The posited solution laid out in the last paragraph is interesting. When I joined the Criminal Section of the Justice Department's Tax Division in the early '90s, we had such a separation: the Assistant AG and two of the Deputy Asst. AGs were political appointees; the third Deputy was a career prosecutor overseeing criminal cases, and it was he who hired me. I was told that the arrangement had been instituted to prevent politically motivated prosecutions in the wake of Nixon-era abuses. It worked fine for a while, but eventually the third Deputy position reverted to one of political patronage.
More and more conspiracy theories from a man, Alan Dershowitz, who needs and desires to regain, or maintain, a relevancy in the public eye. When one thinks of the law today in relevant terms, one thinks of corruption and political science majors as undergrad coursework for lawyers (the easiest curriculum in academics and at Harvard with its grade inflation, anyone and their couch can get straight A's). While most Americans have zero access to justice, especially in civil matters, when the government forces the public to adhere to the legal system and laughingly get quotes from these lawyers for $500-1000 per hour fees to sit around and make up nonsense revelations as Dershowitz does.
I have never met a smart lawyer. Have you? Put them in a chemistry or physics class and they dwindle down to crying.
As Dersh's Dems marches on towards total destruction of a once great justice system.
This is what needs to be done. For the red states that feel strongly about the constitution, will have to disenfranchise themselves from the rest of the union and come together as a divided union and leave the blue states for themselves. The democratic/ Communist party will not negotiate anything and will not yield . Time for a huge divorce and I guarantee that will bring panic to the democratic / communist party. They know they can not survive on their own.
These United States were meant to be one people. Not sure whether Red or Blue it is you are advocating to disenfranchise, but it might be an acceptable premise for Blue. Forget Red States. We will claim our founding documents, and live free or die.
You're presuming that this is a prosecution instead of a persecution. Were it the former, an outside special counsel would be required in the interests of justice. Since it is the latter, a special counsel from inside is required in the interests of politics.
Like so much else these days (Left and to a lesser extend Right): "we're going to break all the rules in order to save the country from someone who will break all the rules." This lie is getting a little stale.
To quote Judge Chamberlain Haller: “That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought out objection...overruled.” From the lack of action on the part of Republicans, no one cares apparently. This entire “investigation” is a farce and will come to nothing.
Seems to me like Garland was instead following § 600.2(b) and just directing the previous initial investigation be continued in order to be better informed... Your final argument to divide the Justice Department into two parts is rather inflammatory, which I assume you know.
600.2(b), which provides that an AJ may order an initial investigation "to better inform the decision" as to whether a Special Counsel should be appointed, is inapposite, as Hunter's tax dodges have been under investigation for nearly five years and Garland has purported to appoint Weiss as Special Counsel.