(CNN) In a highly unusual move, lawyer Tom Goldstein asked the US Supreme Court on Friday evening to declare Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as the acting attorney general, instead of Matthew Whitaker who currently holds the job.

Goldstein also represented Maryland's Attorney General in a similar court filing at the district court level earlier this week.

Goldstein's motion was filed in connection with a gun rights case that is before the Supreme Court as a petition for a writ of certiorari, meaning the nine Justices will meet in conference at a date still to be determined to decide whether to hear it. The case is Barry Michaels v. Whitaker, which was automatically renamed from Michaels v. Sessions following Whitaker's appointment.

Since the attorney general is charged with enforcing all federal law, including the statutes in this gun rights case, the motion argues that the identity of the attorney general is imperative, and the rightful acting attorney general is Rod Rosenstein.

The motion urged the Supreme Court to immediately declare the proper acting attorney general since there "is a significant national interest in avoiding the prospect that every district and immigration judge in the nation could, in relatively short order, be presented with the controversy over which person to substitute as Acting Attorney General." And petitioners even left room for the Supreme Court to affirm Whitaker's appointment saying, "Even if this Court now determines that the President in fact validly appointed Mr. Whitaker as Acting Attorney General, that ruling would equally benefit the administration of justice by removing the cloud of uncertainty over the appointment and by resolving the burgeoning number of challenges to it."

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