president to do something, to testify about obstruction. to testify and perhaps create a perjury situation. couple of questions. if, in fact, as you suggest, mr. mueller is an inferior employee, does an inferior employee of the department of justice have the power constitutionally to force his boss, the president of the united states, to appear before a grand jury or to appear in person for an interview? what do you think? i would say no. an inferior officer does not have the legal right or the constitutional right to question a president over exercising his constitutional authority. in, for example, firing james comey, the fbi director, and moreover as to the issue of
president and they write this report for the deputy attorney general of the united states, as the acting attorney general of the united states, the president has no legal way to defend himself. he has to defend the office of the president against what could be a rogue indictment. he has to fight that for the office of the presidency. for separation of powers and so forth, and yet as an individual citizen, he can t go to court. he can t fight the allegations. isn t this a strange situation where a report is written and it s given to the department of justice which will then be pressured to give it to congress when you have an inferior employee at the department of justice basically writing an impeachment report? don t you find odd? this really goes to the whole idea of special counsels and the way that we use special counsels and essentially have you somebody whose job it is to shadow this president and all
smith, about the appointments clause of the constitution. constitution has an appointments clause, and to sum it up basically, if you re a principal officer, if you seek to be a principal officer in the executive branch in the president of the united states, he is to nominate the individual, and that person typically gets hearings, maybe not, has to be confirmed by the united states senate. that s the way the frameers wanted it. so we have this special counsel, we have a ruling 30 years ago in a supreme court case, morrison v. olson, the want in court statute, and the court overruled with the great antonin scalia dissenting and provided certain elements in the test, that it s constitutional because the independent counsel is an inferior employee who reports to superior who oversees the case, and there are specific things that this individual is
president to do something, to testify about obstruction. to testify and perhaps create a perjury situation. couple of questions. if, in fact, as you suggest, mr. mueller is an inferior employee, does an inferior employee of the department of justice have the power constitutionally to force his boss, the president of the united states, to appear before a grand jury or to appear in person for an interview? what do you think? i would say no. an inferior officer does not have the legal right or the constitutional right to question a president over exercising his constitutional authority. in, for example, firing james comey, the fbi director, and moreover as to the issue of
number one, this indicted issue, the president cannot be indicted according to the department of justice. mr. mueller is an inferior employee in terms of the department of justice. he works for the department of justice. and he must cply with the policies of the department of justice. even putting aside the constitutional issue, he cannot defy the department of justice and bring in an indictment. i believe they already understand that because they watch your show. because additionally, we know he can to either because of the arguments laid out by republican administration and democrat administration. you cannot cripple the president of the united states but he s the most powerful man in the federal government, expect him to have his due process constitutional rights properly defended at the same time. no president has been indicted, there is a reason for that. no president has ever been brought before a federal grand jury, there is a reason for that. perhaps mr. mueller is the one wh