Several lawyers from past administrationshave come to the defense of Office of Legal Counsel chief Virginia Seitz, following Sen. Charles Grassley’s harsh criticism of her post facto authorization of President Barack Obama’s controversial recess appointments this month.
The Iowa Republican called Seitz a “lackey for the administration” on Monday after the administration released a previously confidential authorization of the appointments.
Virginia Seitz (Andrew Ramonas/Main Justice)
The memo states that Obama was within his rights as president to appoint individuals during recess. But Grassley said on the Senate floor Monday that the legal opinion is “wholly erroneous” and “poorly reasoned.” In addition, he said he believes it’s unlikely Seitz will survive another nomination process anytime in the near future.
But in a Politico report Tuesday, some former White House lawyers refuted Grassley’s remarks, calling them “preposterous” and “misplaced.”
“These OLC opinions involve very difficult constitutional issues as well as separation of powers,” Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during George W. Bush’s administration, said according to the report. “OLC lawyers should be free to render their honest opinion and not be threatened with adverse career consquences by either the White House or Congress.”
Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration, said Grassley’s “name-calling is misplaced.”
“The legality of the Obama recess appointments is, as the Seitz opinion acknowledged, a close question,” Goldsmith told Politico. “But much of Seitz’s opinion followed long-settled executive branch legal precedent, and when she encountered novel issues, she addressed them honestly in a reasoned analysis that she published for the world to see and criticize.”
Walter Dellinger, chief of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton, said Grassley’s statements seem unresearched. The definition of “recess” has been debated for many years — it is anything but clear, he said.
“I can’t believe that Senator Grassley has actually read Seitz’s thoughtful and carefully reasoned opinion,” Dellinger told Politico. “And he may not be aware that attorney’s in the administration of President George W. Bush reached the same conclusion that she reached.”
Earlier this month, Obama appointed former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Consumer Financial Protection bureau, which was created in the wake of the financial crisis. He also appointed three others to the National Labor Relations Board. Many Republicans, including Grassley, called the appointments unconstitutional because the Senate was in a pro forma session at the time, meaning most of its members were home for the holiday break. After mounting pressure from the Republicans, the Office of Legal Counsel memo was released.
