The Elon Musk government’s government ministry evolves quickly and breaks the law – many laws.
Trump’s radical effort and musk for Purge federal workforce And Slash public spending shocked the political world – partly to its ambition, but also in part because of its contempt for the law.
David Superprofessor of administrative law at the Georgetown Law School, recently told Washington Post That so many musk movements were “so illegal” that it seemed to “play a game of quantity, and assuming that the system cannot react to all this illegality at the same time”.
I started my hand to great so that he can browse this quantity game – so that he can take me on tour of all the apparent laws in Musk’s efforts so far. A transcription of our conversation, condensed and published for more clarity, follows.
The legality of the use by the musk from the administrative authorization to the key officials
So far, something that really struck me about the tactics of the new administration is this extremely aggressive use of paying administrative leave. Career managers who have resisted Doge’s requests were quickly put on administrative leave. Government officials also work on Dei. Almost all USAID staff, the American agency for international development, concluded this fate.
Is this a legal use of administrative leave? How do normal administrations use it?
It is very strange and probably illegal. Federal law limits administrative leave to 10 days of work per year. They will therefore quickly exhaust the cap for many of these people.
Normal administrations use it as normal businesses use it, as a patch for a variety of problems. If there is someone who is accused of reprehensible acts and you need time to investigate and the case is serious, administrative leave may be the solution. If someone clearly needs a little time for an imperative reason, like major losses, and there is no way to do it with other forms of leave, this can be done. It is therefore a bit of a difference in difference in the statutes and in intention and in ordinary use.
This makes strategic use on a larger scale and there is simply no legal authority for this.
The administration has also sent the “fork on the road” email, saying that if the civil servants have agreed to resign, they will go on administrative leave and will be paid for their full salary until September 30. What are the legal problems there?
Well, they make a promise which is contrary to federal law – and which has very serious consequences.
THE credits of the Constitution indicates that federal money can only be spent in accordance with a credit by the Congress, and the Congress cannot limit its credit from all areas. They limited the appropriation, for wages, only 10 days of administrative leave per calendar year.
So when they promise more than that, they violate the credits clause. They also violate the Anti -deficiency (A law prohibiting federal employees from committing funds that have not been affected). And then, when they make money to people on March 14 in March, the end of the current continuous resolution, they also engage federal funds before a creditor, both unconstitutional and illegal.
They seem to think of it as a “hacking” – they probably think that the dismissal of people is legally risky, but putting them on paid administrative leave is a delicate step in addition, that maybe they could get away with it.
Well, a question is whether they really do. They certainly promise it. But they also suggested that they may not be bound by contracts.
It is therefore very possible that people will submit their resignation on this basis, that the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) will sign them to contracts that commit it, and will simply not comply, and will argue that they cannot Complete legally due to the CAP on administrative leave.
At that time, people stupid enough to take this invitation can continue to try to enforce their agreements. And I guess the courts will say that we cannot apply the agreement that no one had an authority to conclude.
Affirm that the presidential authority not to spend money, the Congress has been adopted
Very well, let’s move on to expenses. We have seen an incredibly wide order on the frost of federal subsidies suspended by the courts. Musk team was also discussed trying to prevent specific subsidies from being paid. What are the legal problems with this?
Well, the biggest problem is that the Supreme Court governed new to nothing That when the congress directs that the money is spent, the president is forced to do so. It is therefore an obstacle that will be very difficult for them to overcome.
Presidents can certainly send recommendations to Congress that funds should be cut. The detention control law provides an accelerated procedure to have these recommendations examined. But the president simply did not have this unilateral authority.
The Trump administration has found many eccentric legal theories about the reasons why they are able to do all these things. But these legal theories really come from the same place as this idea that the vice-president has the power to cancel popular judgment during a presidential election and to give the election to whom the vice-president chooses. It was an absurd theory when they tried to persuade Mr. Pence to do it, and it has been an absurd theory since. However, the ideas that we see here come from the same very strange form of bizarre constitutional ideas.
Trump and Musk try to dissolve Usaid and move it to the State Department. This seems to challenge the face of the status of the congress creating this agency, right? Is it more complicated than that?
This is really not the case. Section 6563 (a) of title 22 From the American code said, there is an USAID. This does not say that there can be. That does not say, “if the president wants it”. He says there East A USAID. So closing it means defying this status.
The appointment of Musk and the payment system of the Treasury Department
I also want to ask questions about Elon Musk himself and his position in the government. The administration said he was an employee of the special government, although he does not say exactly when he officially obtained this status. They say that It’s him Whether it is to declare a conflict of interest regarding his business, with everything he works on. What are the legal problems here?
Well, there are many of these problems. There are a number of government integrity rules designed to keep people who are business of governments controlling the stock market ropes that affect them.
We do not know what the status of M. Musk is. We do not know if he has a status where they are waiting to see what is happening and they try to provide him with retrospectively. So we are really as soon as it is how it could come together. But it seems that he has access to information that could be extremely useful to use against his competitors. By simply saying: “Well, we hope he will do the right thing about conflicts of interest”, is far away, well below the obligations of the government.
There have been a lot of reports on Musk and his team enter into the payment systems of the Treasury Department. What are the legal red flags on this subject?
There are a number of them. There are very elaborate requirements in federal law on which can control federal funds – which can issue payments on behalf of the federal government. In all likelihood, the people involved are not eligible in these terms.
This also means that they have access to extraordinarily sensitive private information which is covered by the Privacy law And a number of other laws and regulations designed to protect the American people from identity theft. If the reports they have copied this information on other servers are true, and these servers are hacked, so many of us could make our bank accounts empty by the federal government.
On the other hand, Mr. Musk said that he identifies false payments, or illegal payments, and to save the federal government $ 4 billion a day Or a huge figure of this kind. There is no reason to believe that the data of this system would make it possible to say what is legal and what is not, leaving aside the fact that Mr. Musk is not allowed to take this kind of decisions. It therefore seems that there are wishes of thought or something worse in the way they try to justify this.
(Update: after this conversation, the Trump administration Accepted temporary limits On Doge’s access to the Treasury Payment Systems.)
Will the courts stop this?
Is there another field of the flagrant revolution that I have neglected to mention?
He declared that he had the power to repeal the federal rules without following the procedures required by the Administrative procedure law. This would fundamentally upset the regulatory system of this country and could be very disturbing for regulated businesses. If a different president decided to use this alleged power to browse the regulations, I suspect that the Liberals and the Conservatives would be very concerned about this proposal.
You said to the Washington Post that you thought you were playing a “quantity game” in Paris that if they obviously disinformed many laws at the same time, the system would not be able to manage or respond effectively to what they make . How do you think it has worked for them so far?
Funding freezing was enjoined. Many of these other movements are illegal and will probably be quickly prohibited.
But I think that President Trump follows the statements he has made on several occasions that his appointments in the Supreme Court owe him and should show him loyalty, and he believes that, between his three nominees and judges Thomas and Alito, that ‘He may be able to have the majority willing to allow him to violate any federal law he wishes.