ATTORNEY GENERAL/NOMINATION/RUSSIA INVESTIGATIONS/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The fight over President Donald Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, with lawyers in a pending gun rights case asking the justices on Friday [11-16-18] to decide if the action was lawful. Critics have said the Republican president’s appointment of Whitaker, who now will oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election, on Nov. 7 to replace the ousted Jeff Sessions as the chief U.S. law enforcement official violated the Constitution and federal law. Lawyers for Barry Michaels, who filed a lawsuit in Nevada challenging a U.S. law that bars him from buying a firearm due to prior non-violent criminal convictions, decided to make Whitaker’s appointment an issue in their pending appeal before the high court because Sessions was named as a defendant in the case. The lawyers told the justices that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be the acting attorney general.”
–Reuters, “Trump’s Attorney General Appointment Challenged at Supreme Court,” The New York Times online, November 16, 2018