Over on Just Security, I've published a deep dive into the statutory question that prompted Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss the indictment against Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Despite the way Judge Cannon's decision has been advertised, it really has little to do with the Appointments Clause or any other constitutional issue. The only real dispute is whether Congress has vested the Attorney General with statutory authority to hire someone from outside DOJ to handle a criminal investigation and prosecution.
As the Supreme Court held 50 years ago today--with respect to Acting AG Robert Bork's appointment of Leon Jaworski as Special Watergate Prosecutor--the plain answer to that question is "yes." In my post, I explain why that answer was right--indeed, so clear that both Nixon's savvy counsel and Oliver North's, fourteen years later, concluded that it wasn't even worth raising.
My post is very detailed (it even has a bunch of footnotes, for those of you who can't resist getting into the weeds!), but the basics are quite straightforward:
Congress has vested the Attorney General with (i) the authority to control criminal investigations and prosecutions; (ii) the authority to delegate those functions to other DOJ actors; and (iii) the authority to hire persons from outside DOJ to work at the Department. Ergo, Attorney General Garland was statutorily authorized to hire Jack Smith to work at DOJ specifically for the purpose of supervising the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases.