5 ms·

How is it an illegal operation?

by jedilord 2y ago

mplewis 2y ago
DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent agencies of the US Government such as USAID.
- zosima 2y ago
  DOGE gets its authority through the president. The president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions. The exact shape or form of USAID is also up to the president. It was created through an executive order, and can of course also be transformed through one.
  - msarvar 2y ago
    I have seen this regurgitated several times on this site now. This is blatantly false, congress passed a law in 1998 to establish USAID. The EO was made with authority that had been granted by another law. That law does not allow the President to abolish it: > Unless abolished pursuant to the reorganization plan submitted under section 6601 of this title, and except as provided in section 6562 of this title, there is within the Executive branch of Government the United States Agency for International Development as an entity described in section 104 of title 5. - 22 U.S.C. §6563 All it takes is a simple google search.
    - pfannkuchen 2y ago
      The actual law is a high dimensional interaction of all active legislation. Predicting what the legal system will do is hard and often cannot be achieved with high reliability with a google search. This is why lawyers exist. Presumably doge and trump have access to good lawyers. I’m not asserting that they are right, just that a shallow legal analysis is error prone and looking at a single law likely does not yield useful prediction making capability.
      - msarvar 2y ago
        The OP asserted that USAID was created by EO and that the president is free to do what he wants with it. That statement is blatantly false. How does court decide is not relevant to this discussion, because as you said it is speculative.
        generalizations 2y ago
        [flagged]
        msarvar 2y ago
        Well my luck, turns out he can't do transformations either. > Sec. 7063. (a) Prior Consultation and Notification.--Funds appropriated ... may not be used to implement a reorganization, redesign, or other plan described in subsection (b) by ... the United States Agency for International Development ... without prior consultation ... with the appropriate congressional committees. > (b) ... a reorganization, redesign, or other plan shall include any action to > (1) expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize covered departments, agencies ... > (2) expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize the United States official presence overseas ... > (3) expand or reduce the size of the permanent Civil Service, Foreign Service, eligible family member, and locally employed staff workforce of the Department of State and USAID from the staffing levels previously justified to the Committees on Appropriations for fiscal year 2024.
        selecsosi 2y ago
        It's remarkable how much effort some people put into portraying this as a 'highly complex' legal issue. In reality, laws like this one typically include standard boilerplate provisions precisely to prevent situations like the current one, regardless of the administration. A simple Google search is actually enough to establish what one _should do_ here according to the law. Claiming that this is complex isn't just a matter of disagreement; it's a deliberate distortion of language and intent. This approach dismisses a clear legal bright line in favor of framing the issue through power dynamics and a 'what can I get away with' mindset. Without independent or ethical agents of enforcement or a process that's interested in keeping up, what we can get away with ends up being a lot and will likely be substantially impactful.
  - dodobirdlord 2y ago
    It was consolidated into the Department of State as part of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 as an agency with an administrator and responsibility for administrating the distribution of aid under certain preexisting laws. So it is straightforwardly outside of the authority of the president to disband the agency, as Congress has provided that it shall exist. And it is likewise outside of the authority of the president to reduce it to an inactive status, as it has certain Congressionally-established responsibilities that it must perform. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/chapter74&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/cha...
    - zosima 2y ago
      I didn't say the president could disband it. I said the president could transform it.
      - dodobirdlord 2y ago
        The comment you replied to was discussing the president’s authority to shut down agencies. (And lack thereof.)
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    > The president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions. This is not true. Obviously. That would give the President carte blanche authority over the budget by merely declaring "illegal/fraudulent/wasteful." Go re-read the Constitution before posting this bullshit.
- impulser_ 2y ago
  They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.
  - outside1234 2y ago
    The president can't decide to stop spending money Congress has passed by EO.
    - buzer 2y ago
      That sounds weird. I can understand that you cannot take money that was promised for thing X and spend in thing Y but if you can reduce the X spending I don't think there is any issue. Now I do not know if Congress has explicitly required X to provide certain thing. If they did then there might be some issue if X fails to provide it. It's probably easy to say someone is accountable for it if it's something objective (let's say building for Congress) but if it's subjective it could get tricky.
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        No, the executive is not allowed either to redirect or to stop or slow the Congressionally apportioned funds. This is called impoundment and it's unequivocally illegal.
        buzer 2y ago
        No wonder everyone always tries to figure out how to spend money if they still have some left before end of the fiscal year. Some individual "I saved us $1 million by shutting down servers we don't use!" Manager "Fuck, now need to quickly figure out some way to spend $1 million..."
        outside1234 2y ago
        Most of the US Government spending is on things that are fairly fixed and fairly known. There isn't a lot of elastic spending like this, or at least not in a way that really turns a dial.
- honestSysAdmin 2y ago
  [dead]
- skissane 2y ago
  DOGE didn’t shut down USAID. Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing it and they did. Musk is essentially a presidential advisor, and legally an advisor can advise the President to do pretty much anything. Even if the thing they are advising the President to do is illegal, the President is the one who bears the legal responsibility for the action, not the advisor. In really extreme cases, like if Musk were advising Trump to commit genocide, or carry out a military coup, or transfer a billion dollars out of US Treasury into someone’s personal bank account, and Trump followed the advice, Musk might be held legally liable for having given it. But shutting down a government agency isn’t anything like that. The legality of shutting it down is debatable, but even if ultimately held to be illegal, it isn’t the genocide or military coup or blatant corruption kind of illegal.
  - zzzeek 2y ago
    > Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing and they did. which is illegal. USAID can only be "shut down" by an act of Congress
    - skissane 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - quickthrowman 2y ago
        It is not debateable at all, the President has to ask Congress to rescind appropriated funds if the President doesn’t want to spend the money allocated by Congress. If Congress chooses not to rescind the allocated funds, then the president must spend the money. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 is explicitly clear about this, there is absolutely no room for debate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974#Impoundment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Imp... > Title X of the Act, also known as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, specifies that the president may request that Congress rescind appropriated funds. If both the Senate and the House of Representatives have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within forty-five days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation. Congress is not required to vote on the request and has ignored most presidential requests.
paganel 2y ago
[flagged]
exceptione 2y ago
I don't know? To this day people still fuss about concentration camps here, while the leader clearly had given authority to do so. People are just too political these days. By the way, I heard the Palestinian Problem is going to be solved for good?

How is it an illegal operation?

mplewis 2y ago

DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent agencies of the US Government such as USAID.

zosima 2y ago
DOGE gets its authority through the president. The president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions. The exact shape or form of USAID is also up to the president. It was created through an executive order, and can of course also be transformed through one.
- msarvar 2y ago
  I have seen this regurgitated several times on this site now. This is blatantly false, congress passed a law in 1998 to establish USAID. The EO was made with authority that had been granted by another law. That law does not allow the President to abolish it: > Unless abolished pursuant to the reorganization plan submitted under section 6601 of this title, and except as provided in section 6562 of this title, there is within the Executive branch of Government the United States Agency for International Development as an entity described in section 104 of title 5. - 22 U.S.C. §6563 All it takes is a simple google search.
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    The actual law is a high dimensional interaction of all active legislation. Predicting what the legal system will do is hard and often cannot be achieved with high reliability with a google search. This is why lawyers exist. Presumably doge and trump have access to good lawyers. I’m not asserting that they are right, just that a shallow legal analysis is error prone and looking at a single law likely does not yield useful prediction making capability.
    - msarvar 2y ago
      The OP asserted that USAID was created by EO and that the president is free to do what he wants with it. That statement is blatantly false. How does court decide is not relevant to this discussion, because as you said it is speculative.
      - generalizations 2y ago
        [flagged]
        msarvar 2y ago
        Well my luck, turns out he can't do transformations either. > Sec. 7063. (a) Prior Consultation and Notification.--Funds appropriated ... may not be used to implement a reorganization, redesign, or other plan described in subsection (b) by ... the United States Agency for International Development ... without prior consultation ... with the appropriate congressional committees. > (b) ... a reorganization, redesign, or other plan shall include any action to > (1) expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize covered departments, agencies ... > (2) expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize the United States official presence overseas ... > (3) expand or reduce the size of the permanent Civil Service, Foreign Service, eligible family member, and locally employed staff workforce of the Department of State and USAID from the staffing levels previously justified to the Committees on Appropriations for fiscal year 2024.
        selecsosi 2y ago
        It's remarkable how much effort some people put into portraying this as a 'highly complex' legal issue. In reality, laws like this one typically include standard boilerplate provisions precisely to prevent situations like the current one, regardless of the administration. A simple Google search is actually enough to establish what one _should do_ here according to the law. Claiming that this is complex isn't just a matter of disagreement; it's a deliberate distortion of language and intent. This approach dismisses a clear legal bright line in favor of framing the issue through power dynamics and a 'what can I get away with' mindset. Without independent or ethical agents of enforcement or a process that's interested in keeping up, what we can get away with ends up being a lot and will likely be substantially impactful.
- dodobirdlord 2y ago
  It was consolidated into the Department of State as part of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 as an agency with an administrator and responsibility for administrating the distribution of aid under certain preexisting laws. So it is straightforwardly outside of the authority of the president to disband the agency, as Congress has provided that it shall exist. And it is likewise outside of the authority of the president to reduce it to an inactive status, as it has certain Congressionally-established responsibilities that it must perform. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/chapter74&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/cha...
  - zosima 2y ago
    I didn't say the president could disband it. I said the president could transform it.
    - dodobirdlord 2y ago
      The comment you replied to was discussing the president’s authority to shut down agencies. (And lack thereof.)
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  > The president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions. This is not true. Obviously. That would give the President carte blanche authority over the budget by merely declaring "illegal/fraudulent/wasteful." Go re-read the Constitution before posting this bullshit.
impulser_ 2y ago
They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.
- outside1234 2y ago
  The president can't decide to stop spending money Congress has passed by EO.
  - buzer 2y ago
    That sounds weird. I can understand that you cannot take money that was promised for thing X and spend in thing Y but if you can reduce the X spending I don't think there is any issue. Now I do not know if Congress has explicitly required X to provide certain thing. If they did then there might be some issue if X fails to provide it. It's probably easy to say someone is accountable for it if it's something objective (let's say building for Congress) but if it's subjective it could get tricky.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      No, the executive is not allowed either to redirect or to stop or slow the Congressionally apportioned funds. This is called impoundment and it's unequivocally illegal.
      - buzer 2y ago
        No wonder everyone always tries to figure out how to spend money if they still have some left before end of the fiscal year. Some individual "I saved us $1 million by shutting down servers we don't use!" Manager "Fuck, now need to quickly figure out some way to spend $1 million..."
        outside1234 2y ago
        Most of the US Government spending is on things that are fairly fixed and fairly known. There isn't a lot of elastic spending like this, or at least not in a way that really turns a dial.
honestSysAdmin 2y ago
[dead]
skissane 2y ago
DOGE didn’t shut down USAID. Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing it and they did. Musk is essentially a presidential advisor, and legally an advisor can advise the President to do pretty much anything. Even if the thing they are advising the President to do is illegal, the President is the one who bears the legal responsibility for the action, not the advisor. In really extreme cases, like if Musk were advising Trump to commit genocide, or carry out a military coup, or transfer a billion dollars out of US Treasury into someone’s personal bank account, and Trump followed the advice, Musk might be held legally liable for having given it. But shutting down a government agency isn’t anything like that. The legality of shutting it down is debatable, but even if ultimately held to be illegal, it isn’t the genocide or military coup or blatant corruption kind of illegal.
- zzzeek 2y ago
  > Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing and they did. which is illegal. USAID can only be "shut down" by an act of Congress
  - skissane 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - quickthrowman 2y ago
      It is not debateable at all, the President has to ask Congress to rescind appropriated funds if the President doesn’t want to spend the money allocated by Congress. If Congress chooses not to rescind the allocated funds, then the president must spend the money. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 is explicitly clear about this, there is absolutely no room for debate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974#Impoundment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Imp... > Title X of the Act, also known as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, specifies that the president may request that Congress rescind appropriated funds. If both the Senate and the House of Representatives have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within forty-five days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation. Congress is not required to vote on the request and has ignored most presidential requests.

paganel 2y ago

[flagged]

exceptione 2y ago

I don't know? To this day people still fuss about concentration camps here, while the leader clearly had given authority to do so. People are just too political these days. By the way, I heard the Palestinian Problem is going to be solved for good?