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Comment by anothername12 | Hacker News Reader

The article outlines some reporting changes (from OMB to White House chief of staff??) to get around that apparently

That remains to be seen. From the same article:

> "Just changing the name alone under the Executive Order doesn't affect DOGE's recordkeeping status,” Jason R. Baron, professor at the University of Maryland and former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration told 404 Media in a phone call. “The administration apparently has made a determination that DOGE will be a presidential component subject to the Presidential Records Act. However, that will surely be challenged in the courts in connection with FOIA lawsuits. Under FOIA, it will be for the courts to decide whether under existing DOGE is acting more like a federal oversight agency or as a presidential component that solely advises the President.”

DOGE is not acting as an oversight agency, they are locking people out of systems and modifying code, so they can't be an oversight agency.

Congress needs to do their job here.

The article is fairly sloppy and uses lots of scare-quotes, but basically it's saying that communications for the DOGE team will report in to the Chief of Staff making them subject to the Presidential Records Act instead of the general reporting conditions for the OMB.

The article also states that 'DOGE is gutting...' when that's not true. They're advising the President, and the President is cleaning house. They investigate, recommend, the President decides, and those decisions get acted on. This is how a task force like this is supposed to work.

"The President decides..." within the limits of his constitutional powers. Which do not include, for example, impoundment or unilaterally shutting down agencies authorized by Congressional acts.

Depends on if anyone will do anything to stop him.

People are throwing around the word "impoundment" lately. But it has a very specific meaning, and no impoundment has happened.

only because the courts stopped it

Judge John McConnell disagrees with you. His decision placing a hold on the spending freeze cites the Impoundment Control Act as part of his finding that the lawsuit is likely to succeed on the merits.

Yeah, it is always fun when people here know more than supreme court judges about US law.

To be fair, he's a district chief judge and I've certainly disagreed with some of them in the past. But at least it demonstrates that the question of impoundment is on the table.

That decision applies to a very specific item: congressional appropriated federal support to states. Which is probably the strongest case for an impoundment argument.

Yep. And certainly at the beginning of all this there was reason to think that this was happening. For example, Solar for All grants were paused with no explanation of why or the expected path for releasing them.

So, yes, impoundment is a relevant term to use.

Virtually all of the spending through USAID was Congressionally authorized. Can you explain how blocking or delaying that spending fails to meet the definition of Impoundment?

To say nothing the freezes that have been put on hold by the courts.

Impoundment is determined on the scope of a “program” for which appropriations have been made: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title2/chap....

If you think there’s a violation of the impoundment act, you need to identify what the “program” is and why you think the administration won’t spend the whole program amount within the relevant time period.

> They're advising the President, and the President is cleaning house.

That may be a distinction without a difference. The reason to have advisors around is so you can rely on them to make a proposal you can sign off on, because they understand your overall vision. If they're not proposing cuts he agrees with, he'll replace DOGE leadership until he finds people who do.

Exactly. I made this comparison elsewhere, but it still fits. They are akin to the US Chemical safety board. They have investigative powers, but that's it. They can't actually change anything, just issue recommendations.

Now, USCSB makes some incredible YouTube videos, I somehow doubt Doge will do the same

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