Summary
A Congressional Research Service report states Trump lacks the authority to abolish USAID, as congressional approval is required.
It explains that a 1998 law briefly allowed reorganization but expired in 1999. While past administrations have modified USAID’s functions, they consulted Congress.
Lawmakers are concerned about Trump’s executive order pausing foreign aid and potential USAID-State Department consolidation.
I love all these “it’s illegal” and “he has no authority” articles.
Until someone stops him, he has the authority. The man isn’t going to stop because you wave a piece of paper at him, and neither are his cronies.
I hope these kinds of stories embolden or empower the folks trying to stand up to him, but its already clear he’ll physically remove people from offices if needed. How long before the dissenters are just on the next plane to Gitmo while every Republican voter either cheers him on, stands by silently, or doesn’t even know it’s happening?
This is going to end up with a whole lot of people getting lynched by angry mobs.
God damnit. This sounds like some cyberpunk bullshit story and were fucking living it.
It’s because it is, it’s literally the end goal. Look up Balaji Srinivasan, the guy that came up with the idea of replacing traditional nation-states with decentralized, corporate-run regions, and wrote about it in a whole-ass book called “The Network State: How To Start a New Country”. These assholes read cyberpunk and decided it was an excellent idea because they all thought they’d be Arasaka or Pharmakom.
Nowhere near enough people understand this. Challenging these things in court isn’t going to matter when the courts are all shut down. The DOJ has already advised that he can ignore court injunctions. The US government is being rapidly dismantled. The rule of law no longer exists.
Turns out checks and balances don’t work when one of them has all the guns.
And none of the others have a spine.