Jeff Sessions
29 Articles

The Constitutional Challenge to Robert Mueller’s Appointment (Part V): If Mueller is an Inferior Officer, Was Rosenstein’s Appointment Constitutional?
[With minor oral argument update; Nov. 8] In this final post, I’ll briefly describe the other two Appointments Clause arguments that appellant Andrew Miller makes in his challenge…

The Constitutional Challenge to Robert Mueller’s Appointment (Part IV): Morrison, Edmond, and the DOJ Special Counsel Regulations
[With relatively minor oral argument updates; Nov. 8] In my previous post in this series, I explained that Special Counsel Mueller is (at most) an “inferior officer” for…

The Constitutional Challenge to Robert Mueller’s Appointment (Part I): Introduction
[Minor Update after Oral Argument below–November 8] Two weeks from today, on Thursday, November 8, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Judges Henderson,…

States Are Challenging New Policy That Denies Asylum to Survivors of Domestic Violence
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia filed an amicus brief on September 28, in support of a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s new policy that denies asylum…

Who Might Replace Rod Rosenstein and What Would it Mean for the Mueller and SDNY Investigations?: A Deep Dive
Who would replace Rosenstein as deputy attorney general in the event Trump fires him or he resigns under pressure? And who would supervise the Russia and related investigations?…

Sessions’ Recusal and Rosenstein’s Appointment of a Special Counsel—Both Were Legally Required
President Donald Trump made 5,001 false or misleading claims, as of Sept. 12, 2018, according to a running tally kept by the Washington Post. This included an astonishing 79 such…

Once again: Trump Can’t–and Therefore (probably) Won’t–Remove Mueller
Lederman writes that the President does not have the legal authority to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, based on a over a hundred years of Supreme Court precedent and reflected…

Reclaiming the Public Safety Mantle for Sanctuary Cities
James Schwab, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resigned earlier this month saying that he could no longer “bear the burden” of spreading false information…

Sessions’ Firing McCabe Violated His Promise to Recuse
Most focus on what the Attorney General said in his statement of recusal in March 2017. What has been overlooked is when Sessions promised the Senate, under oath, that he would…

How Trump Might Replace Sessions with Pruitt as Attorney General
Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair reports of “two Republicans in regular contact with the White House” who say that President Trump “has discussed a plan to fire…

Trump’s New Target: The Justice Department’s Inspector General
President Donald Trump repeated his totally bizarre attacks against his own attorney general on Wednesday, but this time he included a new target for his anger: the Justice Department’s…

You Don’t Need to Know What’s in the Nunes Memo to Worry About Its Release
President Donald Trump has reportedly thrown his support behind the movement to #ReleaseTheMemo. It’s perhaps not surprising that a trending Twitter campaign has received a warm…