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WASHINGTON – On Friday, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether President Trump had acted legally by appointing Matthew G. Whitaker as Acting Attorney General. The court also agreed to decide what evidence could be used to challenge the addition of an issue regarding citizenship to the 2020 census.
The request for a decision regarding the appointment of Mr. Whitaker was in the unusual context of the ongoing challenge to the Second Amendment to a federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms by persons convicted of crimes. Lawyers for Barry Michaels, who was convicted of securities fraud in 1998 and wants to buy a firearm, filed a motion asking judges to rename his case.
He had previously called Michaels v. Sessions, and he was renamed Michaels v. Whitaker after Whitaker was named in place of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who resigned under pressure on Nov. 7.
Substitutions of government officials pursued in the course of their duties in the courts are usually automatic. It would be unusual for the Supreme Court to rule in such a context on a significant constitutional and statutory issue.
Mr. Michaels asked the Supreme Court to rule on the case of Michaels v. Rosenstein, alleging that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein was acting Attorney General due to the appointment of Mr. Whitaker in violation of federal laws and the Constitution. Jurists are divided on whether Mr. Whitaker's appointment was legal. On Wednesday, the office of the legal adviser of the Ministry of Justice said that was the case.
The answer to the question, whether it is resolved in the case of Mr. Michaels or in another context, may be important to the fate of Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of the interference. of Russia in the 2016 election, which had been overseen by Mr Rosenstein and which resulted. to Mr. Whitaker, who has been critical of this.
Michaels' lawyers include Thomas C. Goldstein, a prominent Supreme Court litigator. He wrote that the fast action of the court was justified.
"Every day, Mr. Whitaker should take a number of important official acts, including the appointment of immigration judges, authorization of national security warrants, the decision not to enforce federal laws on the grounds that they are unconstitutional, the approval or withdrawal of regulations, and oversee the investigation of the special advocate Robert Mueller, "wrote Mr. Goldstein.
"If the court refuses to resolve this issue immediately and decides several months in the future that Mr. Whitaker's appointment is still invalid," added Mr. Goldstein, "the outcome of all these personal orders would then be a painful exercise and disturbing. this could lead to federal courts in countless collateral conflicts.
The Supreme Court's action in the census case, in the Commerce Department, No. 18-557, was also unusual. The court had previously The Trump administration rejected the urgent request to stop the trial. The case is now largely completed, although it has granted a separate application to block the testimony of Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, who oversees the Census Bureau.
The judges put the new appeal on a relatively fast track, placing the arguments of February 19 at the latest.
The new Supreme Court appeal does not concern the central issue of the case: whether the addition of the question was lawful. Instead, the administration has at the moment asked the judges to exclude only certain evidence outside the official administrative record, including the reason given by Mr. Ross to add the question.
Opponents of the case – New York, other states, localities and pressure groups – said that the citizenship issue was a calculated effort on the part of the administration to discriminate against immigrants. Mr. Ross's changing explanations for the addition of the question, they said, indicated a political motive.
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