NOURNEWS- However, US President Donald Trump has not said anything irrelevant. Dozens of new powers are being provided to a US president under the terms of the state of emergency. These powers are rarely used, but last month Trump made a misguided claim that he had full authority to require state governors to reduce restrictions on coronavirus outbreaks. Trump's remarks surprised legal experts and others.
The situation prompted 10 US senators to look into Trump's credentials, according to White House documents. They demanded that they obtain and view the so-called presidential emergency documents (PEAD) in the government. These lesser-known confidential documents are essentially a set of planning documents. These documents do not give a president the power of choice beyond what is stated in the constitution, but they do show that a president believes in what powers the constitution gives him the power to interact with national emergencies. U.S. senators say the documents shed light on how the government describes the president's powers in an emergency. "One has to look at these things," Sen. Angus King said in a telephone interview. The problem is that this president can declare a state of emergency and then say that because there is an emergency, I can do this and that and that.
Independent King, along with seven Democrats and one Republican, wrote a letter last month to Richard Grenell, the US National Intelligence Agency's interim director, urging him to keep them informed of emergency presidential documents. Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy made a similar request to White House Attorney General William Barr and White House Legal Adviser Pat Sipolon.
"There are concerns that actions may be taken to violate the individual rights enshrined in the Constitution, such as restricting standard and appropriate procedures, engaging in unintentional espionage and unjustified detention," King said. He added: "I'm just speculating that maybe we got access to these documents and saw that there was nothing in them that contradicted the balancing factors of power, and that everything was legitimate."
Joshua Goltzer, a law professor at Georgetown University, said an effort had been made to obtain and monitor the documents because there was a growing distrust of the Trump administration's legal interpretations, which have been unprecedented in its entire life. One of the most controversial issues is Trump's decision last year to declare a state of emergency along the US-Mexico border. The decision allowed Trump to raise $ 3.6 billion for other military construction projects to fund the project to build a wall at the site beyond the amount agreed by congressional lawmakers to allocate. bring. "I'm concerned that Trump may want something else under the pretext of a state of emergency," Goltzer said. I think there's a lot of potential around this November presidential election for this evil president to do something else.
The lawmakers made the request a few days after Trump surprisingly claimed on April 13 that he had the authority to force the United States to reopen its economies as the coronavirus spread. "When a person is president of the United States, he has full authority," Trump said. His remarks drew a backlash from some governors and legal experts. Trump later tweeted, while some believe the decision is not the governor's but the president's, "let it be clear that this is a wrong assessment."
Trump later backed down from his claim of full control, saying the United States has a higher hand in deciding to end restrictions on the spread of coronavirus.
Elizabeth Gwyneth, director of the National Security Program at the Brennan Justice Center at New York University's School of Law, said documents related to the president's work in the state of emergency have not been subject to congressional oversight for decades. He estimates that 50 to 60 of these documents contain draft drafts, executive orders and proposed laws that may be introduced during a state of emergency to determine the president's overall authority.
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