DOJ says Matthew Whitaker can serve as acting attorney general @AP
Justice Department: Matt Whitaker as acting attorney general appointment is proper washex.am/2DnhkKR
The Office of Legal Counsel, a DOJ office that acts as an adviser to the attorney general, released a 20-page opinion upholding Whitaker's temporary role leading the department. Trump named Whitaker to the role on Nov. 7 after firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
A senior Justice Department official told reporters Wednesday morning that prior to Sessions’ ouster and Whitaker’s appointment, Trump had asked the OLC if he would be able to designate a senior department official should a vacancy in the attorney general's office arise.
A senior Justice Department official told reporters Wednesday morning that prior to Sessions’ ouster and Whitaker’s appointment, Trump had asked the OLC if he would be able to designate a senior department official should a vacancy in the attorney general's office arise.
The OLC opinion says Whitaker could was be installed as acting attorney general under the VRA because “he had been serving in the Department of Justice at a sufficiently senior pay level for over a year.”
The VRA allows the president to use the law to “depart from the succession order specified” under a Justice Department succession statute, the opinion says.
The opinion also says Whitaker’s designation is consistent with the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, because while the attorney general is a position that requires Senate confirmation, “someone who temporarily performs his duties is not.”
Beginning in 1792, the opinion argues, Congress authorized the president “to ensue the government’s uninterrupted work by designating persons to perform temporarily the work of vacant offices.”
The OLC said it identified “over 160 times” before 1860 in which non-Senate confirmed persons performed, on a temporary basis, "the duties of such high offices” such as secretaries of state, Treasury, war, Navy, and interior.
