It's an interesting question. The president's powers are supposed to be limited and checked. That was the whole point of the American Revolution.
One of the ways the president is limited is that the he can't authorize people to commit crimes. e.g. he couldn't instruct his AG to open an investigation into his political opponent under false pretenses in order to hurt his electoral chances. If the AG were to do that, it would be a crime. So the question isn't whether the president has authorized Musk to do something, but whether or not the president even has the power to do the thing he delegated.
And what is the power in question? It's control over spending appropriated by Congress. And that's where separation of powers comes in. Congress is supposed to control the purse strings, and the president is supposed to make sure the money is spent on the priorities of the people, taking care of prosecuting fraud and abuse. The point of giving Congress this power is to give the people a mechanism to set their priorities on how their own money is spent. It shouldn't be the case that one guy comes in and then gets to decide how to spend all our money.
But that appears to be what they are trying to do, in claiming that their cuts are all under the guise of reducing fraud and abuse. But really what they're trying to do is do an end-run around Congress. They want all the money, but they don't want to have Congress vote on it, because they don't actually have the votes to implement the agenda they want to, since Congress is so divided. So instead they're just taking the funding they have and allocating it in ways that support only the agenda items they want to see implemented.
>>One of the ways the president is limited is that the he can't authorize people to commit crimes. e.g. he couldn't instruct his AG to open an investigation into his political opponent under false pretenses in order to hurt his electoral chances. If the AG were to do that, it would be a crime. So the question isn't whether the president has authorized Musk to do something, but whether or not the president even has the power to do the thing he delegated.
ok, but since the investigative (FBI) and the prosecutorial (US Attorney) apparati are under the control of the executive, if the local USA goes along with Trump and against the law, the remedy is....what exactly?
Impeachment, followed by conviction and removal-from-office, in theory.
In practice this is extremely unlikely because the threshold for the vote in the Senate is high enough that you'd need bipartisan consensus, and the US Constitution wasn't really written expecting the party system to exist.
The thing that makes revolutions fail or succeed is whether or not they take control of the money. Trump isn't doing that. He appears to just be auditing for fraud and corruption. If he was trying to control the money, then he'd need to march doge into the federal reserve. But he can't because it's not organized under the executive branch. They claim they're not even part of the government.
" He appears to just be auditing for fraud and corruption."
The constitution gives Congress sole authority to control spending and any payments Musk stops is a extreme violation of the Constitution. I really hope this ends with Musk either in prison for life or with his US citizenship revoked and him deported back to South Africa.
If Musk stops any payment that Congress has approved he is breaking the law. and the US Constitution. Considering he is an immigrant he could have his citizenship revoked and be deported.
You still believe the lies that con artist Musk tells you? He isn't ever going to Mars. Tesla is never going to have FSD so good they are willing to take legal liability for accidents the way Waymo does.
2. The rule of law is not a magical thing that enforces itself, and many people seek to undermine it for their own enrichment, so those of us who believe #1 is correct (which is most people in the US) must understand the levers of power and use them to maintain t
it.
Despite the current struggles, I think we have some real advantages in this fight. One of those is actually just capitalism. We have financialized trust in the US government, via the bond market. That trust is not entirely downstream of the rule of law, but it is to a fairly large degree. We have already seen once that an effort by the administration to squelch on its contractual obligations was quickly reversed, which was this basic mechanism at action. The worst things DOGE could do with this (illegal) control over the Treasury would be unworkable for this same reason.
There are still horrible outcomes that aren't subject to this constraint (and in my opinion, we need to reform the pardon power in order to maintain the rule of law moving forward), but it's not true that there are no constraints.
We added a trillion dollars to the balance sheet a few years back. The USD is not backed by trust, it's backed by power. Power that is enforced through military might and resource control over vassal states like most of Western Europe. If you want to understand how power really works understand that Trudeau just threatened a tariff on maple syrup until one of his wiser advisors pointed out that all Canadian oil pipelines make a pitstop in the good ol' USofA for, checks notes, "refinement". Dunno, sounds important.
Checkmate, Justin.
Meanwhile, in the nursery the rule of law is quietly taking its afternoon nap.
One of the ways the president is limited is that the he can't authorize people to commit crimes. e.g. he couldn't instruct his AG to open an investigation into his political opponent under false pretenses in order to hurt his electoral chances. If the AG were to do that, it would be a crime. So the question isn't whether the president has authorized Musk to do something, but whether or not the president even has the power to do the thing he delegated.
And what is the power in question? It's control over spending appropriated by Congress. And that's where separation of powers comes in. Congress is supposed to control the purse strings, and the president is supposed to make sure the money is spent on the priorities of the people, taking care of prosecuting fraud and abuse. The point of giving Congress this power is to give the people a mechanism to set their priorities on how their own money is spent. It shouldn't be the case that one guy comes in and then gets to decide how to spend all our money.
But that appears to be what they are trying to do, in claiming that their cuts are all under the guise of reducing fraud and abuse. But really what they're trying to do is do an end-run around Congress. They want all the money, but they don't want to have Congress vote on it, because they don't actually have the votes to implement the agenda they want to, since Congress is so divided. So instead they're just taking the funding they have and allocating it in ways that support only the agenda items they want to see implemented.