Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz is criticizing Attorney General Merrick Garland for stretching the law to protect President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. The famous jurist presented his case to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he was appointing David Weiss as special counsel, he failed to mention Code of Federal Regulations section 600.3(c) entitled “Special Counsel Qualifications.” These qualifications include the following: ” The special counsel will be selected from outside the United States government.”

“This requirement is the law. The regulations were authorized by Congress under 5 USC 301, 509, 510, 515-519,” he quoted. “The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. He is certainly expected to obey the law in its entirety.”

“If you believe that there is somehow an applicable exception to this requirement, you are required to explain why,” he continued. “Especially when the special counsel is appointed to investigate the son of the sitting president, who appointed Garland, every T should be crossed and dotted.”

“Here we have what appears to be a clear rule that uses the word ‘shall’ rather than a more permissive word such as ‘may.’

“The regulation on its face seems mandatory, and not consultative. If not, why not?” he asked.

“There are good reasons for this requirement,” he added. “The special counsel is supposed to be independent of the current government, not an employee who serves as the United States attorney for Delaware and can be fired from that job by the president.”

“Garland’s defenders argue that he may have simply evaded, rather than violated, the law because the appointment was made under his general authority and not expressly under the relevant regulations,” he continued. “This is a stretch especially because it relied on those very regulations to give the special counsel the powers authorized by the regulations.”

“In any case, we rightly expect our attorneys general to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law and not cut corners,” he continued. “Democrats often say that no one is above the law. However, they have remained silent about Garland apparently placing himself above the law by electing Weiss in violation of existing legal regulations.”

“Under our constitutional system of checks and balances, it is within the power of Congress to summon Garland and ask him to explain why he believes he is justified in ignoring a federal regulation that appears to limit his authority to appoint special counsels,” he noted. . “He was surely aware of the regulation and its apparently binding application. Perhaps his explanation will be acceptable.”

“Maybe he will admit that he was wrong,” he added. “Perhaps he will refuse to answer. The public has the right to hear him and judge for himself.

“Their decision to ignore the regulation was surprising,” he said. “Many, including this author, hold Garland in high regard as a politically neutral and impartial attorney general,” he said.

Dershowitz then offers a potential solution to the legal dilemma.

“The definitive solution is to divide the Department of Justice into two separate units: a political one, whose head serves at the pleasure of the president; the other a non-partisan prosecutor, who cannot be fired except with the consent of Congress”, he argued. “If this was done, there might be less need for special counselling.”

NOW READ:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer just had his “What’s the Difference?” moment

“*” Indicates mandatory fields

OPINION: This article contains comments that reflect the opinion of the author.

Source link