Trump Has Emergency Powers We Aren't Allowed to Know About
The past few weeks have given Americans a crash course in the powers that federal, state and local governments wield during emergencies. Weve seen businesses closed down, citizens quarantined and travel restricted. When President Trump declared emergencies on March 13 under both the Stafford Act and the National Emergencies Act, he boasted, I have the right to do a lot of things that people dont even know about.
The president is right. Some of the most potent emergency powers at his disposal are likely ones we cant know about, because they are not contained in any publicly available laws. Instead, they are set forth in classified documents known as presidential emergency action documents.
These documents consist of draft proclamations, executive orders and proposals for legislation that can be quickly deployed to assert broad presidential authority in a range of worst-case scenarios. They are one of the governments best-kept secrets. No presidential emergency action document has ever been released or even leaked. And it appears that none has ever been invoked.
Given the real possibility that these documents could make their first appearance in the coronavirus crisis, Congress should insist on having full access to them to ensure that they are consistent with the Constitution and basic principles of democracy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/trump-coronavirus-emergency-powers.html
lapfog_1
(29,219 posts)and the vast majority of the population simply ignores them.
pandr32
(11,605 posts)Ferrets are Cool
(21,109 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)such powers, but hopefully he'll be gone in 9 months.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)cayugafalls
(5,643 posts)After reading the article and another written in 2017,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/14/the-american-governments-secret-plan-for-surviving-the-end-of-the-world/
I have to admit to being a little more than concerned about the coming months. This needs to get more attention.
Lock him up.
(6,939 posts)Send this to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.