The Supreme Court has already expanded the powers of President Donald Trump into a series of emergency decisions, but by dismissing the governor of the Federal Reserve (Fed), Lisa Cook, and in other cases that will probably be carried before the Court, he shows that he is still looking to obtain more extensive powers for the Executive.
These causes could constitute major tests to determine how far the Supreme Court is ready to go to approve the affirmation of the executive by the president. They differ from previous confrontations due to the very magnitude of power that Trump seeks to exercise and because he wishes to exercise increased control over the powers that the Constitution attributes to another branch of the government.
In addition to the Cook affair, which could be brought before the Supreme Court after the latter brought a trial last week, a resounding cause concerning the customs duties imposed by Trump should lead to the Supreme Court shortly after their cancellation by a court of appeal. The Trump administration’s decision to retain tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid granted by the congress could also be brought before the courts.
Photo Wesley Lapointe, for the Washington Post
The United States Supreme Court
Peter Shane, professor of law at New York University, described Trump’s statements as “amazing”.
Other presidents have attempted to use their authority aggressively, but this was generally done through aggressive interpretations of the law and in a fairly targeted manner.
Peter Shane, professor of law at New York University
Each of the presidential powers disputed by Trump “calls into question what, in my opinion, has so far been considered a fundamental power of the congress,” he continued.
The Supreme Court has already been open to the idea of granting the president a large power to replace certain leaders of independent agencies.
The judges granted a major victory to Trump in May when they allowed him to dismiss the leaders of the National Council for Labor Relations and the Council for the Protection of the Merit System, while legal appeals are underway concerning their dismissal. Trump gave no reason for these layoffs.
The conservative majority of the Court ruled that the Constitution confers all executive powers to the president, so that Trump could dismiss the managers of the agencies “without reason”, even if the congress had created these agencies to protect them from any political interference.
But the judges have drawn a red line around an agency: the federal reserve, which was created by the congress to operate independently of the president in order to be able to fix interest rates according to the economic situation and not of political pressures.
The judges indicated that its governors could probably only be dismissed for a valid reason.
Trump is testing this red line in dismissing Cook, thus becoming the first president in 111 years of history of the agency to try to return one of the seven governors who contribute to defining American monetary policy.
Trump said he was dismissing Cook for a “valid reason”, alleging that she had made false statements on mortgage loan requests in 2021, before being appointed to the Fed by President Joe Biden. Trump administration officials have since formulated other allegations.
Cook has described its dismissal as “unpublished and illegal” and pretext allowing Trump to build a board of directors of the Fed which will access its requests for lower interest rates.
A federal judge heard Cook’s injunction request on Friday, but should not make his decision before the end of September.
Photo Mark Schiefelbein, Associated Press Archives
The dismissed governor of the Federal Reserve, Lisa Cook
The legal battle around the dismissal of Cook should be played on the interpretation by the courts of the expression “valid reason”, which is not defined in the law creating the Fed and which has never been the subject of a dispute before.
H. Jefferson Powell, professor of law at Duke University, said that there was also a question of procedure: “(Trump) must clearly establish from the start that he knows that she has committed an act justifying his dismissal for valid reasons, or can he simply dismiss her? »»
Trump’s representatives defended in the documents deposited in the Cook case that the courts should show “great deference” with regard to the president’s decision and not question his reasoning.
Disputed customs duties
In the second case, which concerns most of the customs duties imposed by the Trump administration, a court of appeal judged last week that the taxes on foreign products were illegal, but suspended its decision for the moment. Trump said he would appeal to the Supreme Court.
These generalized customs duties are the main characteristic of the trade war waged by Trump. He described them as necessary to restore the American industrial base and save jobs. But they destabilized investors and created uncertainty for consumers and businesses.
Trump began to impose customs duties in February, declaring the state of emergency under the Act on International Emergency Emergency Powers (IEEPA). This law authorizes the president to impose trade measures in response to foreign threats, but Trump is the first to use it to assume a practically unlimited power in the taxation of customs duties.
The congress has delegated to the president a limited power to establish customs duties, but the Constitution gives the legislative power the power to take taxes on imports.
In February, the president announced customs duties of 10 to 25 % on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, accusing these countries of not having contained the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs to the United States. In April, Trump imposed a universal customs right of 10 % on all its business partners and higher rates on around 60 countries, qualifying this day of “Liberation Day”.
In his decree on these last customs rights, Trump wrote that the “important and persistent” trade deficits of the United States constituted an “unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and the economy of the United States”.
Photo Evan Vucci, Associated Press Archives
Donald Trump (back) at an event to announce new customs duties in the Roseraie de la Maison Blanche, on April 2
A handful of small businesses and a group of states brought distinct legal proceedings against these customs duties in April, saying that they would cause generalized economic damage. Small businesses have qualified the taxation of customs duties by Trump as illegal “power”.
The United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit ruled on Friday that the law did not confer this power to Trump.
“The law gives the president of important powers to take a number of measures in response to a declared national emergency situation, but none of these measures explicitly include the power to impose customs, taxes or other rights, or the power to tax,” wrote the majority in his judgment.
Foreign aid gel
The third case, which focuses on the question of whether the Trump administration can freeze billions of foreign aid, is part of a long -standing legal showdown which reaches its climax, because the funds budgeted by the Congress must begin to expire at the end of the fiscal fiscal year in September.
Photo Demetrius Freeman, Archives The Washington Post
Demonstration against Donald Trump’s decision to close the American Agency for International Development (USAID) last February, in Capitole, in Washington
One of the first measures taken by Trump in January, as soon as he entered into office, was to announce a total suspension of foreign aid, saying that it was not in accordance with American values or interests. International humanitarian organizations have brought a trial, arguing that this suspension would cause a humanitarian crisis and constituted a violation of the separation of powers, since the Constitution gives the Congress the power to control public finances.
In February, the federal judge Amir H. Ali estimated that Trump did not have the power to retain these funds and ordered their payment. A battle was then committed to knowing if the Trump administration officials would comply with this decision.
This month, a panel of judges from the Court of Appeal blocked the injunction of judge Ali, believing that the complainants did not have quality to bring legal action. But the court of appeal as a whole did not authorize this decision to take effect while it was studying the possibility of re -examining the case. This prompted the Trump administration to ask the Supreme Court to intervene to block the decision of judge Ali.
The Court of Appeal finally refused to re -examine the case, but referred it to judge Ali, leaving the possibility that the legal battle continues and that humanitarian organizations can request a new injunction against the freeze.
This means that the case could again be returned to the Supreme Court in the coming days, which would give rise to a confrontation on the power of Trump to seize funds.
In addition, the Trump administration decided last week to resort to a rarely uilized tactic, known as the name of Pocket Rescission (“Pocket Rescision”), to unilaterally cancel around 5 billion dollars in foreign aid without the agreement of the congress. Democratic and republican leaders have questioned the legality of this decision, which could give rise to new judicial disputes.
Lauren Bateman, lawyer of the complainants in the case of foreign aid, argues that the administration has always intended to “let the deadline pass and let these funds expire”, against the will of the congress.
“The attacks of the administration in the rule of law are astounding, and all this to refuse help to the most vulnerable people in the world,” said Mr.me Bateman in a press release.
This article was published in the Washington Post.
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