Case Dismissed, They Miss Trump, Again

There were several cases GVRed at the end of June. This is one of the methods the Supreme Court uses to communicate with the inferior courts.

What they are doing is telling the inferior courts, all of them, that this opinion we issued, applies to these sorts of cases.

The Loper Bright case was the death of Chevron. Chevron was the horrible opinion out of the Supreme Court that said, if the agency administrating a law thinks it is ambiguous, then it is ambiguous. If it is ambiguous, the courts must use the agency’s interpretation of the law.

Since the Chevron opinion, the Supreme Court has been attempting to “fix it”. The problem was that they needed the inferior courts to do rational, reasonable things. Too many of the inferior courts did not do reasonable, rational things.

Chevron became a catch-all for any power hungry agency.

The Loper Bright opinion told the inferior courts, “Stop avoiding your job. You are the final arbitrator on questions of law, not any party. Get out there and read the law and do the right thing.”

Judge Aileen M. Cannon did exactly this.

Trump’s team had filed a motion to dismiss his case based on the theory that Jack Smith did not have the authority to bring charges.

While everybody has been calling Jack Smith “The Special Counsel”, that is a position that must exist.

The Trump motion points out that the Constitution defines how “Officers of the United States” are appointed. Those officers are separated into “inferior” or “principal” officers.

Principal officers must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Jack Smith argues that he is an inferior officer.

While inferior officers can be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in Heads of Departments. — U.S. Constitution

The state, through Jack Smith, argued that his appointment was lawful because it was done under an ambiguous law. Since it is an ambiguous law, the DoJ was able to say, under Chevron that of course they got it right.

But with Chevron dead, the Court looked at the law and determined that the DoJ did not have the authority to create the position. Since they could not create the position, Jack Smith had no special standing. I.e., his authority was no more than yours or mine.

This is another win for us. And this case was decided without a need for looking at Presidential Immunity for official acts.