https://www.ntd.com/supreme-court-filing-jack-smiths-appointment-is-unconstitutional_962163.html Former Attorney General Edwin Meese and two scholars submitted an amicus brief with the Supreme Court that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional and that every action against former President Donald Trump should be declared null and void. “This Court should reject Mr. Smith’s request for certiorari before judgment for the simple reason that he lacks authority to ask for it,” according to Wednesday’s filing from Mr. Meese and two constitutional scholars. “Nor does he have authority to conduct the underlying prosecution. Those actions can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices.” The filing Wednesday argued that Attorney General Merrick Garland also “exceeded his statutory and constitutional authority” when Mr. Smith was appointed last year to oversee two federal cases targeting President Trump. The attorney general has cited a statute for the appointment, but the statute is not even “remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel,” the filing said. The brief argued that both statutes and the Constitution do not allow the attorney general to appoint a private citizen, who has never been confirmed by the Senate, as a substitute U.S. attorney under the title ‘special counsel.'” The brief added: “That is what happened on November 18, 2022.” The DOJ has not filed a response yet to their claims with the Supreme Court. “We do not want future U.S. Attorney Generals … to be able to pick any tough thug lawyer off the street and empower him in the way Attorney General Merrick Garland has empowered private citizen Jack Smith,” Mr. Calabresi argued. “Think of what that would have led to during the McCarthy era or in the Grant, Harding, Truman, or Nixon Administrations in all of which an Attorney General was corrupt.”