Posts tagged with "Director of National Intelligence"

Above, President Donald Trump. (Posted by sheepn0more on #trump/Instagram)

Trump threatens to adjourn Congress in order to unilaterally confirm his nominees

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April 17, 2020

“I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be,” President Donald Trump told Fox News in November 2017. And he continues to think that his choices are the only ones of value.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that the president threatened on April 15 to adjourn both chambers of Congress so he can appoint his nominees for key positions without confirmation by the Senate.

Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reports, during a news conference at the White House on Wednesday, Trump called on lawmakers to formally adjourn the House and Senate so he can make recess appointments for positions he said were important to the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Senate, which confirms a president’s nominees, has been conducting what are called pro forma sessions while lawmakers are back in their states, sheltering in place.

No legislative business is conducted during these brief meetings, which sometimes last only a few minutes, but they technically prevent the president from making recess appointments.

If lawmakers don’t agree to adjourn and end the pro forma sessions, “I will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress,” President Trump avowe d. “The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis. It’s a scam, what they do.”

Among the appointments Trump said he wanted to make, the Journal reported, was his nominee to head the agency that oversees Voice of America, conservative filmmaker Michael Pack, who has been blocked by Democrats. The White House has accused the government-backed news organization of spreading foreign propaganda—a charge VOA strongly denies.

In addition to the VOA nominee, Trump pointed to his nominee to be the director of national intelligence, as well as nominees for positions on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, and in the Treasury Department and the Agriculture Department.

The Constitution gives the president the power to adjourn Congress only in the rare circumstances of a disagreement between the two chambers over when to adjourn. No president has ever exercised the authority to adjourn it.

President Barack Obama challenged the Senate’s practice of holding pro forma sessions to try to block his constitutional power to make recess appointments. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Obama’s end run around the Senate in 2014.

Trump said he was reluctant to make recess appointments but would do so if Congress doesn’t act on his nominees.

For Mr. Trump’s strategy to work he would need the cooperation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Kentucky), who would have to force a disagreement with the House over when to adjourn. Trump and McConnell discussed the idea in a phone call earlier Wednesday, the Journal reports.

The president acknowledged that the effort would likely result in a legal challenge. “We’ll see who wins,” he said.

Research contact: @WSJ

Above, Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo source: mindcite on Instagram)

The Russians are coming: Lawmakers learn that the Kremlin is tampering with 2020 primaries and election

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February 24, 2020

We knew it all along: Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia has mounted a U.S. campaign to get President Donald Trump re-elected. Now, the president is angry and alarmed—not by the Kremlin’s meddling—but by the very real possibility that Democrats may use the information against him, The New York Times reports.

The day after the February 13 briefing to Congress, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of National Intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said.

According to the Times, Trump was particularly irritated that Representative Adam Schiff (D- California), who recently served as the impeachment manager in the Senate, was at the briefing.

During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, the president’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been “tough on Russia” and that he had strengthened European security.

Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying the conclusions could have been delivered in a less pointed manner or left out entirely, to avoid angering Republicans. The intelligence official who delivered the briefing, Shelby Pierson, served as an aide to Maguire and has a reputation for speaking bluntly.

Although intelligence officials have previously told lawmakers that Russia’s interference campaign was continuing, the Times said that last week’s briefing included what appeared to be new information– that Russia intended to interfere with the 2020 Democratic primaries as well as the general election.

On Wednesday, the president announced that he was replacing Maguire with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and an aggressively vocal Trump supporter. And while some current and former officials speculated that the briefing might have played a role in that move, two administration officials said the timing was coincidental.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its election security office declined to comment to the Times. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Research contact: @nytimes

President Donald Trump (left) and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. (Photo source: Daily Express UK)