Staff Reports
In a turn of events that might leave even the most ardent Trump supporters chuckling, Judge Aileen Cannon found her way into headlines by throwing out a case against Donald Trump that Special Counsel Jack Smith brought forth, citing that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. However, the intrigue doesn’t stop at the judge’s gavel. A band of Republican state attorneys general has stepped into the fray, claiming that Smith’s tenure is about as accountable to the President as a high schooler is to their online classes.
These attorneys general hail from a solid roster of states including the likes of Florida, Iowa, Alabama, and Texas, totaling a formidable 20 states. They have united to submit a 33-page amicus brief to the 11th Circuit Court, tackling the notion of whether Jack Smith should be allowed to operate without proper checks and balances. This ragtag brigade strongly argues that Smith, unlike a regularly appointed U.S. Attorney, is virtually untouchable by presidential oversight.
Their assertion is that Jack Smith’s climbing the ranks to special counsel without having the President or Senate bless him undermines the entire executive branch’s accountability. According to the brief, Smith operates in a vacuum of authority, lacking the accountability that is supposed to accompany the wielding of such significant powers. It’s a bit like letting a teenager stay home alone—sure, they say they’ve got the situation under control, but you just know you’ll return to a minor disaster.
Not stopping there, the attorneys general pull a constitutional card that reads, “Article II protects the President’s right to manage his own team.” In layman’s terms, they contend that a President should have the power to oversee, and if needed, prune the ranks of executive officials at will. A merry little delegation of Republican lawyers argues that Mr. Garland’s intention in appointing Smith was to effectively dodge any blame and place the investigations beyond the current Administration’s grasp. Sounds familiar, right?
The brief even goes as far as to present a cheeky analogy—imagine if the Secretary of Defense decided to create an entirely new branch of the military, placing it under the thumb of an untouchable bureaucrat. This notion is met with the same disapproval, emphasizing that while a President may choose to let things slide sometimes, they can’t just tie the hands of their successor and then wash their hands of the whole endeavor. In the realm of accountability, if a government action is conducted, the divergence from presidential oversight is still traceable back to the Commander in Chief, whether he likes it or not.
The shenanigans surrounding January 6 and the subsequent investigations have highlighted just how far the lengths officials will go to evade responsibility, leading to confusion, conspiracy theories, and a whole lot of politically charged commotion. Whether or not the courts take the attorneys general’s arguments seriously remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: the stage is set and the stakes are high, which makes for a prime-time circus in the world of American politics.
