JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/SEC/SUPREME COURT: “The Trump administration on Wednesday [11-29-17] abandoned its defense of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house judicial system, siding with opponents who say the hiring process for the SEC’s judges is unconstitutional.
In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for the Justice Department wrote they now consider the SEC’s administrative law judges to be officers like other presidential appointees, instead of employees who are picked through a human-resources process. That means the way the SEC hires the judges may violate a constitutional clause that safeguards separation-of-powers principles.
The Justice Department’s brief didn’t explicitly describe the judges’ appointments as unconstitutional, but said the selection process for the in-house judge at issue in the case ‘did not conform’ to a constitutional requirement…
An SEC spokesman declined to comment.”
-Dave Michaels and Brent Kendall, “Trump Administration Questions Validity of SEC Judges,” The Wall Street Journal online, Nov. 29, 2017 08:24pm