The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too.
Why is this hard to accept?
Why is this hard to accept?
That was the whole basis of your constitution.
- fire principal officers without
the Senate's advice and consent
- fire other appointed offices who
did not require the Senate's
advice and consent to confirm
- lay off federal employees in the
executive branch
- audit the executive branch's
agencies
- set policy for all executive
branch agencies
The president can also abrogate treaties without the Senate's advice and consent.
Most of the above are not explicitly in the Constitution as such, but are understood to be constitutional law either due to SCOTUS decisions, longstanding and unchallenged practice, or the result of the failed impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Not only that but also most if not all recent presidents going back decades have done some if not all of the above. That includes Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden.
In other words: there is no innovation here, no judicial controversy. This is all standard fare for any new administration. The only difference is the extent of what Trump is doing in his second term compared to any other recent presidency. The sheer number of EOs, the auditing (which basically hasn't been done recently), and the layoffs (which are rare in DC). And yes, he's goring a lot of oxen -more than other presidents in recent memory-, but they all do that, just not eliciting so much outrage from the opposition.
It's a joke that any of you assholes are defending this. This does not pass any sniff test.
Stop making excuses.
The president therefore has the authority to access every last secret and every last system within the executive branch. No statute can limit this power. The president also has the authority to delegate (to some extent; only the president can issue EOs, but presumably his officers can recommend EOs to him) these powers to his or her officers.
The titular of the U.S. Digital Service (DOGE) is statutorily not subject to Senate confirmation, though considering how Trump's controversial nominees have sailed through Senate confirmation it's easy to suppose that Musk would also likely be confirmed to head the USDS were it an appointment subject to Senate confirmation. Since the president can appoint someone like Elon Musk to head the USDS, and since the president can delegate his clearance and declassification authority to someone like Elon Musk, his doing so does very much "pass [the] sniff test".
Are you an idiot? Can you point to the last time some foreigner was given access to American's personal data without any oversight?
Because a lot of people on the other side of the aisle from the current executive said it is bad.
And then they used ad hominem attacks and random slanders to try to shout down anyone who says otherwise.
It's unfortunate.
This is absolutely the job of the executive branch.
Perhaps DOGE should have been created by an act of congress, but in reality that's just a formality because the Republicans control Congress right now.
I'm not sure it'd be better as an agency because there are strict rules and hierarchies around agencies. The way DOGE is operating right now, seemingly, is:
- Agency directors are directed by executive order to work with DOGE and give them access to what they need
- DOGE team members are actually hired as employees of the agencies in which they are operating
- DOGE makes recommendations to agency directors on what things to cut
- Agency directors review recommendations and make cuts
This means that all cuts are being recommended and made within the scope of each individual agency. It is not the case that one agency is telling another what to do, and all decisions are ultimately being made by each agency's director. It simplifies the hierarchy and authority.
It should not be a formality because while it is true that the Republicans have a slight majority in Congress, the founding fathers never intended this most powerful of the three branches to be run by parties. The power in Congress is split up geographically for this very reason, but the party system, that secured its seats with gerrymandering, is highly toxic for a functioning legislative power in the US. It is disappointing to see Republicans in Congress not restricting the executive orders of the new self-proclaimed King.
There are two precedents for this to my knowledge, though there may be more:
- the failed impeachment of
Andrew Johnson established
that the president can fire
principal officers without
the Senate's advice and
consent
- Spicer vs. Biden, which
established that the president
can fire officers with fixed
terms
He was clearly trolling. Grammatically that tweet does not parse like himself calling himself a king. For all you know he loves the British king, or some other king, or maybe he was referring to Jesus. But he got what he wanted from that quip: it got reported, along with credit for ending congestion pricing in Manhattan. Why the media still falls for that, I don't know.
And why would you trust Trump or Musk?
As a result, opponents are hyper-focused on Musk's involvement instead of Trump's.
You'll have to deal with people replying who have been driven literally insane by propaganda.
Money was sent to media agencies (e.g. 9mil Reuters) , to run this massive psyop.
You can't put a band aid on what has been done to them, and they can't critically think their way out of it.