Trump’s wide-ranging effort to bring independent agencies firmly under his control provoked a dramatic confrontation this week at the DC office of the U.S African Development Foundation. The White House Presidential Personnel Office and elements of Elon Musk’s DOGE team moved to oust the board of USADF and purported to install a new acting chairman of the board, a step that legal experts tell TPM is unlawful.
The full extent of the confrontation at USADF became public when the president of the independent agency filed a lawsuit Thursday trying to block the White House’s assault on its independence. The lawsuit refers to a Feb. 28 missive to USADF management from the White House Presidential Personnel Office claiming to appoint Pete Marocco – a Trump official known for helping strangle USAID from within – as “acting chair” of USADF’s board
In it (the memo), Trent Morse, deputy assistant to the President and deputy director of presidential personnel at the White House, stakes out a legal position that would undercut the Senate’s power to confirm new officers at agencies like USADF, experts say. Trump, Morse asserted, would have the “inherent authority under Article II” to appoint acting officials without going through the Senate’s process of advice and consent.
My bold.
Hey oligarchs, do you think you’re safe? You’re nooooooot.
Edit: I should say, they’re not safe from Trump. He’s following the Russian oligarch playbook. You’re going to look back on last year as the good ol’ days of freedom.
He went through his last term with a whole bunch of ‘acting’ officials without them being approved by the Senate; he’s going to rely on that precedent here.
Not to be rude, but please don’t normalize this.
Did he say “I am the senate” in a Palpatine voice?
Someone take away his ketamine.
No no, that’s Elon’s. Dump still uses Sudafed.
In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this definition. For instance, one describes it as the crisis that arises out of the failure, or at least a strong risk of failure, of a constitution to perform its central functions.[1] The crisis may arise from a variety of possible causes. For example, a government may want to pass a law contrary to its constitution; the constitution may fail to provide a clear answer for a specific situation; the constitution may be clear, but it may be politically infeasible to follow it; the government institutions themselves may falter or fail to live up to what the law prescribes them to be; or officials in the government may justify avoiding dealing with a serious problem based on narrow interpretations of the law.[2][3] Specific examples include the South African Coloured vote constitutional crisis in the 1950s, the secession of the southern U.S. states in 1860 and 1861, the dismissal of the Australian federal government in 1975 and the 2007 Ukrainian crisis. While the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not have a codified constitution, it is deemed to have an uncodified one, and issues and crises in the UK and its constituent countries are described as constitutional crises.
Constitutional crises may arise from conflicts between different branches of government, conflicts between central and local governments, or simply conflicts among various factions within society. In the course of government, the crisis results when one or more of the parties to a political dispute willfully chooses to violate a law of the constitution or to flout an unwritten constitutional convention; or to dispute the correct, legal interpretation of the violated constitutional law or of the flouted political custom. This was demonstrated by the XYZ Affair, which involved the bribery of French officials by a contingent of American commissioners who were sent to preserve peace between France and the United States.[4] The incident was published in the American press and created a foreign policy crisis, which precipitated the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Opposition to these acts in the form of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions cited that they violated freedom of speech and exhorted states to refuse their enforcement since they violated the Constitution.[4]
When a crisis arises because the constitution is legally ambiguous, the ultimate resolution usually establishes the legal precedent to resolve future crises of constitutional administration. Such was the case in the United States presidential succession of John Tyler, which established that a successor to the presidency assumes the office without any limitation. Politically, a constitutional crisis can lead to administrative paralysis and eventual collapse of the government, the loss of political legitimacy, or to civil war. A constitutional crisis is distinct from a rebellion, which occurs when political factions outside a government challenge the government’s sovereignty, as in a coup d’état or a revolution led by the military or by civilians.
Rump. 🤭
Beware aggressive rumps
