1 Comment

Curious whether the delay in appointment is due to some of the same weirdness surrounding removal-versus-resignation that we saw in some of the Trump cases (e.g. Geoffrey Berman). I can't fathom why it would make any difference at all to the Vacancies Act whether someone left voluntarily or involuntarily, but a lot of liberals made a lot of noise about such claims...

Also curious whether Robb's refusal to resign was intentionally designed to trigger such problems.

And finally, another oddity that I discovered-- the next person in the line of succession is the head of the Division of Operations Management, Beth Tursell, who is... not a lawyer (and also, perhaps more importantly, Robb's chief enabler among the career staff at the agency). Can a non-lawyer even hold the post of Acting General Counsel? Or is she skipped over (in which case the position would go to Richard Bock, who would be a fine choice as a temporary matter)?

I guess the correct answer, as always, is "just confirm someone and then belt-and-suspenders ratify the crap out of everything."

Expand full comment