The Obama administration appeared to face an uphill battle on Monday in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a broad ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit limiting the president’s power to make recess appointments.
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. told the justices that D.C. Circuit’s interpretations of the clause “would repudiate the constitutional legitimacy of thousands of appointments by presidents going back to George Washington and, going forward, it would diminish presidential authority in a way that is flatly at odds with the constitutional structure the framers established.”
