One possible reason why the FBI raided Mar A Lago was found it in the Brennan Center description of President GW Bush Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs). The FBI may have been looking for and wanted the PEADS President Trump signed. Congress has been trying to get a hold of and change the PEADs rules.
Almost all of us know people who believe Trump may still be President. I believe that under PEADS he still might be secretly. PEADs helps to explain Brandon's and Democrats threats against their fellow MAGA Americans, their response to the "fake insurrection" on Jan. 6 and their continuous efforts to de-fang "The Donald" and their general paranoia and hysteria .
Below are statements by President Trump.
|
April 13, 2020 |
“But I guess I'm doing OK, because, to the
best of my knowledge, I'm the President of the United States, despite the
things that are said." |
|
April 14, 2020 |
“Enough!” [When a reporter questioned his
claim that his authority as president is “total”] |
|
April 14, 2020 |
“[w]hen somebody’s the president of the
United States, the authority is total.” |
|
April 15, 2020 |
U.S. death toll
passes 30,000 |
The power of the president is enormous – and this president is not bashful in describing powers that go well beyond simple declarations.
On 14 April 2020, when discussing guidelines to be issued to governors
about reopening states during the coronavirus pandemic, President
Donald Trump said, "When somebody is the President of the
United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be – it's
total."
As Mr. Trump stated in March,
"I have the right to do a lot of things that people don't even know about."
There are, it's true, some restraints on most presidential authority, but those might not apply to all the president's powers.
We can't know for sure, but what the president appears to have been referring to are his presidential emergency action documents, often referred to as PEADs.
"Even though I've had security clearances for the better part of 50 years and been in and out of national security matters during that half-century, I had never heard of these 'secret powers,'" said former Senator Gary Hart.
"Sunday Morning" special contributor Ted Koppel asked,
"Do you know what they are, now that you've heard of them?"
"Only vaguely, due to research done at the Brennan Center
for Justice at New York University Law School," Hart said. "What
these secret powers are, apparently, based on the research, is suspension of
the Constitution, basically. And that's what's worrying, particularly on the
eve of a national election."
The
Brennan Center research that Senator Hart referred to has been
spearheaded by Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of its national security
program, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
"These are essentially presidential
orders that are drafted in anticipation of a range of hypothetical, worst-case
scenarios," Goitein said.
·
The
alarming scope of the president's emergency powers ("The
Atlantic)
Koppel asked, "Several times during his administration,
President Trump has made allusions to secret powers that he has that we don't
know about. Is he making that up?"
"Well, not exactly," Goitein replied. "And what's
alarming about that is that no one really knows what the limits of those
claimed authorities might be, because they are often developed and kept in
secret."
Goitein says what little we do know about PEADs comes from
references to them in other documents, some of which are now declassified.
"They originated in the Eisenhower administration as part
of an effort to try to plan for a potential Soviet nuclear attack,"
Goitein said. "But since then, they've expanded to address other types of
emergencies as well. No presidential emergency action document has even been
released, or even leaked. Not even Congress has access to them, which is really
pretty extraordinary when you consider that even the most highly-classified
covert military and intelligence operations have to be reported to at least eight
Members of Congress, the 'Gang of Eight.'" Watchman comment: not quite or somewhat true
"You're saying they are not consulting with Congress?"
Koppel asked.
"Exactly," said Goitein. "Congress is not aware
of these documents, and from public sources we know that at least in the past
these documents have purported to do things that are not permitted by the
Constitution – things like martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus and
the roundup and detention of people not suspected of any crime." Watchman comment: Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
"I think I know as much about the PEADs as any other
American citizen, which is almost nothing at all," said David Cole,
national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union – and he is
concerned about the vast array of presidential emergency powers that we do know about.
Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 alone, the president
can declare a national emergency just by signing a proclamation.
Cole said, "We've got a president who, in his first week in
office, essentially declared an emergency to ban Muslims from coming into the
country. More recently, [he] declared a widely understood to be a fake
emergency in order to build a border wall when Congress told him they would not
give him the funds to create a border wall.
"And most recently, [he] has declared that he may need to
delay the election, which would be an emergency authority that doesn't even
exist. So, I think you have to be very concerned."
Which brings us back to those mysterious Presidential Emergency Action Documents:
John Yoo is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. While serving at the Justice Department after 9/11, Yoo drafted the memo that justified the use of "enhanced interrogation" of terrorism suspects.Yoo was asked by Koppel, "Just to reassure our viewers a little bit, John, you've seen these PEADs?"
"I am not allowed to say whether I have or not," he
laughed.
"Let me put it this way: You were at the Justice
Department. Presumably the Justice Department would've had to deal with these
PEADs if a president wanted to implement one?"
"Yes, that's fair to say," Yoo replied. "The
Justice Department and the office I worked in would review the legality of the
PEADs because they would draw on presidential powers and Congressional powers
delegated to them."
Just a couple of weeks ago, Yoo was at the White House discussing executive power
with President Trump.
"'Cause you never know what the emergency is gonna
be," said Yoo. "So, these PEADs and similar contingency planning
documents, when we look back historically at them, sometimes they seem
comic."
"The notion that there are executive powers based on
something that has never been vetted by Congress, giving the president almost
limitless powers to do what he needs to do in the event of a crisis, that's not
funny to me; that's scary," Koppel said.
"Oh, forgive me. I don't mean this
whole question is comic," Yoo said. "And you are right, Ted.
There's dangers to that, and we've seen in our history where presidents
have gone too far. I guess there's a balance, and I guess the founders, they
balanced in favor of giving the president that kind of ability to face
emergencies, even understanding that a badly-intentioned president might abuse
those powers."
Goitein said, "These PEADs undergo periodic revision. And
we know that the Department of Justice is in the middle of one of these
periodic reviews and revisions. So, we have to imagine what the Trump
administration might be doing with these documents and what authorities this
administration might be trying to give itself."
Yoo said, "That's why the framers created the presidency,
was because it could act quickly. I would want President Obama or President
Biden to have the power to respond quickly to a hurricane or a terrorist
attack, just as I would want President Trump to."
"That's fairly benign, John," said Koppel. "But
what if what the president was planning to do was the suspension of habeas
corpus? How would you feel about it then?"
Watchman comment: We Americans will recall that our Japanese citizens were placed in detntion camps, like the one pictured below, during WWII.
"I'd be the first to admit that, in emergencies, the
executive branch can make mistakes, and that's sometimes the price of swift
action," Yoo replied. "Congress is more likely to get things right. Watchman comment: not the Congress of the present day! The founders thought that. But Congress is too large and too slow to act
decisively."
Having said that, Yoo would be comfortable giving a few select
Members of Congress classified access to the secret PEADs.
Gary Hart doesn't think that goes far enough: "I want them
public, because they affect the freedom and liberty and rights of every
American citizen," he said. "I can't say it any better. This is a
blueprint for dictatorship. Watchman comment: yes Lincoln, Wilson and FDR were dictators. Now, I think the more attention it gets, the less
likely those in power are going to use them." Watchman comment: my adopted family was the victim of Woodrow Wilson's persecution. They were forced to change their name from Wilhelm to Williams during WWI to avoid anti-German hysteria.
Koppel said, "We have so much
publicity, Senator Hart, we have so many different voices being raised in
anger, in outrage, in fury, I'm not sure what a few more voices raising an
issue like this, what impact that's going to have."
Hart replied, "This goes to the core of our country and our
founding. And if there is what amounts to the capability to suspend our
Constitution, watchman comment: our precious constitution is long gone, our citizens just don't know it yet. that's not just another issue. That's serious. Keep in mind, the
current, incumbent president (Trump) has declared seven national emergencies. And he
has stated repeatedly that he has more power than most people know about." Watchman comment: I worry far more about senile Brandon, than I ever did about Trump! Trump never said he would use F-15s against our citizens!
Bush did not share anything with congress. They are still trying today to limit the President’s power!
New Documents Illuminate the President’s Secret, Unchecked Emergency Powers May 26, 2022
In 2004, high-ranking staffers in the George W. Bush administration spearheaded a review of the president’s emergency powers. Their goal was to refresh a set of secret plans known as “presidential emergency action documents,” or PEADs, the continuity of government (COG) playbook that emerged under President Dwight Eisenhower as a response to the threat of nuclear war. Equipped with the latest tranche of presidential records, we now know that at least some of the most disturbing aspects of early Cold War emergency action documents existed as of 2008.
Controllingcommunications
At least one of the documents under review was designed to
implement the emergency authorities contained in Section 706 of the
Communications Act. During World War II, Congress granted the president
authority to shut down or seize control of “any facility or station for wire
communication” upon proclamation “that there exists a state or
threat of war involving the United States.” This frighteningly expansive
language was, at the time, hemmed in by Americans’ limited use of telephone calls and telegrams. Today, however, a president willing to test the limits of his or her authority might interpret “wire communications” to encompass the internet — and therefore claim a “kill switch” over vast swaths of electronic communication. Watchman comment: Facebook, YouTube, Google, Teitter, etc. already have a "kill swittch"! And indeed, Bush administration officials repeatedly highlighted the statute’s flexibility: it was “very broad”
Detention authority The records indicate that at least one presidential emergency action document (PEAD) pertained to the suspension of habeas corpus. An internal memorandum from June 2008 specified that a document under the Justice Department’s jurisdiction was “[s]till being revised by OLC [Office of Legal Counsel], in light of recent Supreme Court opinion.” Examining the Court’s rulings over the previous months, it is evident that this must refer to the landmark decision in Boumediene, photo below, v. Bush, which recognized Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ constitutional right to challenge their detention in court.
Inhibiting the right to travel Restricting the use of U.S. passports, a reported feature of some early PEADs— remained on the table as of 2008. Records generated by the Bush administration’s review highlighted provisions of law from 1978 that allows the government to curtail international movement based on “war,” “armed hostilities,” or “imminent danger to the public health or the physical safety of United States travelers.”
Triggering other emergency powers
The national emergency declared after 9/11 — which is still in effect today and continues to prop up the United States’ military presence across the globe — was cited in connection with one or more PEADs. A national emergency declaration unlocks enhanced authorities contained in more than 120 provisions of law. Bush invoked several tauthorities, but several dozen others were — and still are — available to the president as a result of Proclamation 7463. Also missing from the records is any evidence that the Bush administration communicated — much less collaborated — with Congress during its review.
We have previously noted that presidents have kept PEADs secret, not only from the American public but from lawmakers as well. This lack of disclosure effectively blocks a co-equal branch of government from overseeing emergency protocols.
With Congress unable to serve its constitutional role as a check on the executive branch, there remains the possibility that modern PEADs, like their historical predecessors, sacrifice Americans’ constitutional rights and the rule of law in the name of emergency planning. Should Congress pass Sen. Ed Markey’s REIGN Act to bring these shadowy powers to account?
New Documents Illuminate the President’s Secret, Unchecked Emergen...
Insight to what the Bush presidency have done
with our rights behind the backs of Congress and SCOTUS
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