Sunday marked the centennial of the end of World War I. Macron hosted world leaders in France to commemorate the day, and use it as an opportunity to push back against growing nationalism. Macron hosted the Paris Pease Forum, a three day conferenced following the commemorations. Trump skipped most of the events, and left before the conference began.
Here is some of what Macron said in his speech: “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ‘our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it lives, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values.”
Trump was in a foul mood during his France trip. He was angered that the late House and Senate races continued to be called for Democrats. He berated Theresa May when she called to congratulate him on the Republican wins. He was angry that Whitaker was getting negative news coverage. He was angry at Macron for his remarks on nationalism, which he considered a personal attack. He was angry at his staff for the negative coverage he got for skipping the ceremony at the American cemetery, blamed them privately for not telling him it would look bad, then publicly blamed the Secret Service for not letting him go (which was a lie).
Whitaker Appointment
Here is a survey of Whitaker’s resume, which includes some small businesses with legal problems. George W Bush plucked him from obscurity to be a US Attorney in 2004 after he worked on his local Iowa campaign: “James Eisenstein, a professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University who has studied the federal court system, said he knows of no U.S. attorneys with résumés like Whitaker’s.”
Here is the DOJ Office of Legal Council memo that explains why Whitaker’s appointment is legal. It says, “the President may designate an official to perform the duties of a vacant principal officer, including a Cabinet office, even when the acting official has not been confirmed by the senate.”
Experts agree this opinion is not the final word but will either be overturned or upheld in the courts. Just Security writes about how the Whitaker appointment is nearly unprecedented: “the vast majority of historical cases in which someone has stepped in to perform the functions of a ‘vacant’ office of the head of a department, that ‘acting’ official has been someone holding another office in that same department—usually a ‘deputy’ or ‘first assistant’—whom the Senate has already confirmed for that underlying office.” And this: “although the President reportedly planned to rid himself of Sessions many months ago, he did not announce a nomination of a replacement for the Senate’s consideration when he created the vacancy. We can’t say for certain that that’s never happened before with respect to the head of a department; but if has, it’s very rare. (We’re aware of one partial analogy, but presumably it’s not one Trump would eagerly cite as a precedent: After the Saturday Night Massacre in late October 1973, it took President Nixon 13 days to announce his intent to nominate William Saxbe to replace Elliot Richardson.”
The constitutional case is more interesting. The OLC memo cites the case of a non-senate-confirmed appointment to temporarily replace the ambassador to Siam in 1898. The officer served in Bangkok for 10 months, and the Supreme Court ruled that the appointment was valid because he was “charged with the performance of the duty of the superior for a limited time and under special and temporary conditions.” The case is referred to as Eaton. In its memo the OLC cited one of its own decisions from 1977 on this question: the appointment “may not continue indefinitely. Within a reasonable time after the occurrence of a vacancy in the office of Director, the President should submit a nomination to the Senate.” Just Security concludes that this “is best understood to mean that [the duration of the appointment] must be at least reasonably tailored to the exigency that required disregarding the Appointments Clause requirements… That means, at a minimum—and as the Thomas concurrence and 1977 OLC opinion suggest—that if the President assigns the functions to someone who does not satisfy the Appointments Clause, the President must make reasonable efforts to have the vacancy filled expeditiously, by nominating a new officer for the Senate’s consideration.” There is no indication that is about to happen. In fact Whitaker spoke with Lindsay Graham about his DOJ priorities for 2019.
Lawyers in a court federal case have asked the Supreme Court to determine the legality of Whitaker’s appointment.
In other news:
Mattis when to the boarder to inspect the troop deployment there. The migrant caravan is not crossing in droves. NBC news: “According to internal DHS reports and officials tracking the caravan, the first wave of approximately 3,500 migrants are expected to arrive in Tijuana in the coming days and attempt to cross into California. Even there, they won’t swarm the border crossing, but are instead expected to wait in a bottleneck for days before they can enter San Ysidro, California to make an asylum claim.”
Trump gave an interview with The Daily Caller. Here is what he said about the midterms and the new Democratic majority in the House:
- “Look, we have a chance of, they can do presidential harassment, put very simply, and I’ll be very good at handling that and I think I’ll be better than anybody in the history of this office. And in a certain way I look forward to it because I actually think it’s good for me politically, because everyone knows it’s pure harassment. Just like the witch hunt, the Mueller witch hunt. It’s pure harassment. It’s horrible. It’s horrible that they’re allowed to get away with it.
- “Don’t forget, I didn’t really have a majority. I had one senator. And I had a few Republicans in the House. You know, a very small number. Um, and now the pressure’s on them because they’ve gotta come to me with things.”
A recording of Khashoggi’s killers catch them saying “tell your boss” that their mission is completed, wherein the boss is believed by US intelligence to be the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. It was leaked that the CIA believes that the Saudi Crown Prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder. Trump is still trying to downplay the possibility.
The New York Times reports on new North Korea intelligence: “The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.”
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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.5%