Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 57 posts

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#11

Post by JumpCrisscross »

distortionfield wrote: post #7
cocacola1 wrote: post #2

> Phyllis Fong was heading up an investigation into Elon Musk's Neuralink. > Last Friday, President Donald Trump purged several agencies of their inspectors general, demanding that at least 17 people in the role immediately turn in their work laptops and ID badges. One of those IGs, Phyllis Fong at the US Department of Agriculture, decided not to leave, believing the order to be illegal. According to a report from Re…

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

> with these Inspectors General firings as a prime example of how Congress has just thrown their hands up without even a fight

From what I can tell, the IGs do serve at the pleasure of the President. The only thing he didn’t do is notify the Congress. Is that true?

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#12

Post by ck2 »

distortionfield wrote: post #7
cocacola1 wrote: post #2

> Phyllis Fong was heading up an investigation into Elon Musk's Neuralink. > Last Friday, President Donald Trump purged several agencies of their inspectors general, demanding that at least 17 people in the role immediately turn in their work laptops and ID badges. One of those IGs, Phyllis Fong at the US Department of Agriculture, decided not to leave, believing the order to be illegal. According to a report from Re…

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

Here's a better question:

Why with this kind of setup, absolutely no-one to stop them, would they step aside in 1450 days if voters have their say?

Past 10 days have been an absolute railroad of undoing past 100 years.

Imagine 1000 days from now the chaos and nobody can change anything for any reason.

The word tyranny seems to fit and I wouldn't have used that with Bush/Cheney or even Reagan.

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#13

Post by catigula »

INTPenis wrote: post #5
cocacola1 wrote: post #2

> Phyllis Fong was heading up an investigation into Elon Musk's Neuralink. > Last Friday, President Donald Trump purged several agencies of their inspectors general, demanding that at least 17 people in the role immediately turn in their work laptops and ID badges. One of those IGs, Phyllis Fong at the US Department of Agriculture, decided not to leave, believing the order to be illegal. According to a report from Re…

I love the use of the word purge here, makes me think of Stalin.

[flagged]

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#14

Post by bmitc »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
distortionfield wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

> with these Inspectors General firings as a prime example of how Congress has just thrown their hands up without even a fight From what I can tell, the IGs do serve at the pleasure of the President. The only thing he didn’t do is notify the Congress. Is that true?

The law says that he has to notify Congress with a good reason for the dismissal.

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#15

Post by clessg »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
clessg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the courts essentially powerless to enforce? If memory serves, the judicial branch merely interprets the law and Constitution, but they lack an enforcement mechanism - it is up to the Executive Branch (the president) to administer and enforce the law. If they decide they don't feel like listening to the courts, it's unclear anybody could actually do anything. (Other than impeachmen…

> it's unclear anybody could actually do anything Sure, if we get down to mechanics like that, the courts require someone else to enforce. But at that mechanistic level, so does the President. He isn’t personally escorting her out of the office.

> But at that mechanistic level, so does the President. He isn’t personally escorting her out of the office.

Fair enough, I strongly hope a good number of folks within the government show a backbone and resist unlawful or abusive orders however they can. Unfortunately those same people can easily be fired and replaced with somebody appropriately loyal (as is already happening). So, unfortunately, I'm not terribly optimistic.

Popular backlash seems to be fairly effective so far at least, so there is some hope. (For example the federal funding freeze which ended almost immediately after a flurry of confusion and outrage. Allegedly ended, anyway - it's not exactly clear in reality.)

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#16

Post by cogman10 »

clessg wrote: post #6
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even if it was ruled illegal, who’s going to enforce it The court that ruled it such. She would not only be entitled to back pay, anything her replacement does wouldn’t have legal force. That means anything they do can be challenged by anyone who doesn’t like it. We’re seeing the limits of Congressional checks on the executive. But we still have an independent judiciary. (If that collapses it will be a good time to…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the courts essentially powerless to enforce? If memory serves, the judicial branch merely interprets the law and Constitution, but they lack an enforcement mechanism - it is up to the Executive Branch (the president) to administer and enforce the law. If they decide they don't feel like listening to the courts, it's unclear anybody could actually do anything. (Other than impeachmen…

Congress actually has it's own (small) police force, the sergeant at arms.

It's a power they basically never use, but they can technically arrest someone for not complying with a congressional order/subpoena.

But then if they did decide to arrest Trump or others for compliance that'd pit the Sargent at arms directly against the secret services.

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#17

Post by b59831 »

_yb2s wrote: post #10
distortionfield wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

We are on the brink of a fascist dictatorship and hardly anyone is noticing or taking it seriously.

[dead]

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#18

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
distortionfield wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

> with these Inspectors General firings as a prime example of how Congress has just thrown their hands up without even a fight From what I can tell, the IGs do serve at the pleasure of the President. The only thing he didn’t do is notify the Congress. Is that true?

[deleted]

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#19

Post by nrds »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
distortionfield wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

> with these Inspectors General firings as a prime example of how Congress has just thrown their hands up without even a fight From what I can tell, the IGs do serve at the pleasure of the President. The only thing he didn’t do is notify the Congress. Is that true?

Yes. The statute literally leads with "The president may remove the Inspectors General" (quoting/closely paraphrasing from memory). The notification requirement is in addition to this but there's no language which says that the removal power is conditioned on obeying the notification requirement. So Trump legally removed the IGs, and then as a side-effect broke the law by failing to notify Congress.

There's a problem with how the law is written though... It supposedly required Trump to notify Congress before he was even President, but its requirements also only apply to the President. Arguably the law was impossible to follow as written, and I gather that's not even the strongest constitutional problem with the law as written. What we have here is a failure of Congress, and Trump exploiting it.

Re: USDA Inspector General Who Refused to Leave Escorted from Office by Security

#20

Post by distortionfield »

ck2 wrote: post #12
distortionfield wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who’s going to enforce it? This is the real danger of where we’re at right now. We are currently at a point where the President has a stacked Supreme Court that had already showed they’re willing to take his side almost no matter what. There is now effectively no check against the executive branch because of that. Papers are already running stories about how Congress is just letting him loose, with these Inspectors…

Here's a better question: Why with this kind of setup, absolutely no-one to stop them, would they step aside in 1450 days if voters have their say? Past 10 days have been an absolute railroad of undoing past 100 years. Imagine 1000 days from now the chaos and nobody can change anything for any reason. The word tyranny seems to fit and I wouldn't have used that with Bush/Cheney or even Reagan.

He didn’t step away willingly the first time, I have zero reason to believe he would step away willingly the second time, especially after he’s spent so much time undoing all the checks and balances that pushed him out that first time.
Post reply on HN