Summary
Donald Trump signed an executive order expanding presidential control over independent agencies, including the FTC, FCC, and SEC.
The order enforces the “unitary executive theory,” which argues the president has sole authority over the executive branch. It grants Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, oversight of these agencies’ performance and budgets.
The move is expected to face legal challenges, as past presidents have largely respected agency independence.
Trump defended the order, stating, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
What is the legal argument against this? The article was paywalled, but the summay only says that past presidents have respected agency independence. That sounds like just a gentlemans agreement. Nothing legally binding. So do the challenges have a leg to stand on?
Musk’s and his actions are illegal, or were illegal mostly before the Supreme Court decided there’s some sleezy presidential immunity. The problem is they are so firm and quick at changing the rules of the game that no institution can catch up and, most importantly, generally afraid they would be directly attacked by these fuckers. Some commenters preciously said that it’s stupid that most of people who could’ve challenged or straight up dismissed his executive orders are pussies for resigning or being complicit, but, in their defence, all of their personal data was leaked by Muskrat and he and Trump have a pardoned terrorist cell to carbomb them or whatever. And it’s snowballing from department to department, and every new one looks at those who already kneed to the maggot.
All these famous checks and balances were DDOSed and frightened into submission. i don’t think they were exceptionally and inherently fragile. it’s just the rightwing strategists just got the right guy, the right coverage and the right plan to make it all as easy as break-and-enter with absent homeowners.
What was illegal about what musk did? Be specific. On paper he is “working” for the president, and my understanding is that the cabinet members in charge of the various agencies gave him the go ahead to do what he is doing. Both of those are directly or indirectly elected officials charged with running the executive branch of the government. My take is that congress has depended on gentleman’s agreements rather than passing laws to ensure the agencies aren’t tampered with like is happening now.
Think of it like a whole bunch of people standing around a $100 bill left on the ground. Everybody’s standing around waiting for the legitimate owner to come by and pick it up. Trump doesn’t give a shit about that. He’s gonna walk by, shove everyone aside, and grab it. When everyone else tries to stop him and say the money isn’t his, he’s just going to look at you and say “Who’s is it, and why haven’t they picked it up yet?” And while everybody else is standing around trying to figure out the answer to that, Trump is walking away with the money and saying “Finders keepers, asshole. It’s mine now”. Even if the original owner shows up later and tries to lay claim to the money, he’d have to prove that that specific $100 bill was his to begin with or the judge is just going to say that it’s Trump’s money now.
Think that, except with the power of the US government instead of a c-note. And Trump is hoping that the courts will use the same logic: since nobody else tried to claim the power before, and there’s nothing explicitly granting those powers to someone else, Trump is hoping that the courts will just let him keep those powers in a twisted form of finders-keepers. And given this court system, he very well might win.
This is the truth of it. Picking up $100 bill off the ground in public that isn’t yours isn’t actually illegal. And what trump is doing is attempting to stretch the powers of his office. This isn’t anything new really. Just how he is doing it, how much and how fast is new.
Who would have thought the Air Bud defense would be the death knell of democracy in America?
There are laws against it but the Supreme Court gave the president total immunity so all those laws are now void
Which laws. Cause I haven’t seen any quoted anywhere. And, they only gave him immunity for official acts. Then said they (the courts) get to decide what an official act is. Lastly, they did not take away congress’s ability to prosecute him in the form of impeachment.
https://time.com/7212753/trump-elon-musk-federal-laws-legal-analysis/
Did you actually read that. A lot of “potentially”, “possibly” and things like that. In short, it isn’t all that clear cut.
I don’t think there is a good one. It sounds like this is another one of those things where the rules were mostly relying on the idea that the people wouldn’t elect someone who was expected to try to do something like this.
None. We stacked the court with Unitary Executive friendly judges a long time ago.
John
MarshallRoberts has made his decision; now let him enforce it!“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” It’s literally in the OP bro.
Well the boards are appointed by the President with Senate approval. The President can also remove a board member at any time. The board members are generally in pretty good control of the agency.
This seems like it is at most an attempt to end run the Senate but likely just an order to establish a liaison office once you parse everything. He’s passing all these sweeping language orders but also putting in that they should follow all applicable laws.