Trump challenges the power of the congress with plan to shut down USAID, says legal experts

Cnn
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Donald Trump’s apparent plans to shut down the US Agency for International Development Without Conventional Authority represents another unprecedented step from a president who has since the accession of two weeks ago tested the boundaries of his office by treasing long -term legal and political principles, Legal told Legal Experts to Legal Experts CNN.

The decades old agency seemed to be in a free fall on Monday after Elon Musk, a top Trump aid and tech billionaire, said that Trump-without pointing to any specific executive order issued by the president-in-the-time signed to close it down.

Hours later, State Secretary Marco Rubio announced that he was USAI’s acting administrator.

“We are really on unprotected territory here,” said CNN Supreme Court analyst and Georgetown University of Law Professor Steve Vladeck. “We have never seen a president try to basically destroy an agency that Congress has risen.”

On Monday, Trump claimed he did not need Congress at all to scrape USAD completely.

“Not when it comes to fraud. If there is fraud, these people are madmen, ”Trump said when asked by CNN’s Jeff Zeleny about his capacity to accurate major changes in USAID. “We just want to do the right thing. It’s something that should have been done a long time ago. ”

The Agency issues billions of dollars annually around the world in an attempt to relieve poverty, treat diseases and respond to famine and natural disasters. It also promotes democracy building and development by supporting non-governmental organizations, independent media and social initiatives.

But Trump’s claim that he closes with a handless USAD is contrary to the congress’s separate role in the formation and closure of federal agencies, said Matthew Kavanagh, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics.

“A combination of article one and Article two powers of Congress has been interpreted very clearly by the US Supreme Court and by all congress mandates that have come since then to understand that it is Congress’s ability to create and abolish agencies and offices,” said Kavanagh.

“The Supreme Court has regularly recognized that it is the power of the US Congress to legislate, and within this legislative power to create or abolish agencies,” he added. “The president cannot unilaterally abolish an agency established by Congress. It takes a congressional action and it is clearly constitutional. ”

The earliest iteration of USAID was established in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy’s administration. During President Bill Clinton’s term of office, Congress passed a law that formally established the agency we know today, but also gave the president the opportunity to keep it within the state department. Clinton rejected and paved the way for the agency to exist independently of the department.

Rubio said in a letter to legislators later Monday that he had tapped Peter Marocco “to begin the process of participating in a review and potential reorganization of USAid’s activities to maximize efficiency and adapt operations with national interest.”

He concluded by writing that Aid Agency “can move, reorganize and integrate certain missions, agencies and offices in the state department, and the rest of the agency may be abolished in accordance with applicable law.”

Stress test for Trump and Congress

Destroying USAID may fit square in Trump’s political agenda, but the movement itself may ultimately be a stress test for a Republican-controlled congress that has shown a little appetite to reinstate in the president’s movements.

“This administration has said that they want to radically reshape US government bureaucracy in several different ways. And here are Aid Agencies in the United States among the weakest of these agencies politically, ”Kavanagh said.

“We are not talking about the Ministry of Defense – yet. We’re not even talking about the Department of Education – yet, ”Kavanagh added. “I think they test what they can get rid of and clearly try to make this step, even if it is contrary to the US law to see if they will be stopped or not.”

Trump has previously promised to abolish the Department of Education, although departments at the executive level, like USAID, need congressional approval before they can be closed.

“If he is successful here … This will not be the last agency the president is trying in this way,” Vladeck said. “But it is exactly the Poenget, which is that no matter how much we like or dislike an agency, you know it is the power of the congress, not the president, it is at stake here.”

Democrats on Monday sounded the alarm of the administration’s movements, with some calling it illegal and hinting that they would fight the shutdown plan for court.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, called the current moment “a constitutional crisis” during a news conference in front of the agency’s headquarters in the center of Washington, DC.

Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, the supreme Democrat on the supervision of the house and the government reform committee, in the halls of Congress. ”

But it is not clear how Democrats who are against the plans may possibly mount a useful legal challenge for them, as clearing a key threshold question required to bring cases in court can be a challenge for legislators specifically.

Vladeck speculated that legal challenges could come from groups that do not receive funds they have the right to come from USAID or employees may have been dismissed.

“If there are units that have signed contracts with USAID – they may have a violation of contract requirements,” he said. “If there are officials employed in USAID who believe that their employment has been unlawfully terminated in violation of the protection of civil service – they may have a requirement.”

CNNS Jennifer Hansler, Lauren Kent, Alex Marquardt and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.