Comment by cryptonector | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cryptonector | Hacker News Reader

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The Constitution vest all executive authority on the president. The president can delegate that authority. That's what all is happening here. Within the executive branch the president has practically total power, hardly if at all possible to constrain by statute, and that's by design in the Constitution.

The president needs the Senate's "advice and consent" to hire principal officers, and does not need the Senate's "advice and consent" for certain other officers as specified by statute. The US Digital Service ("DOGE") is an agency where he did not need the Senate's advice and consent.

The president does NOT need the Senate's advice and consent to fire anyone in the executive branch. For principal officers this was established by the failed impeachment of Andrew Johnson for firing a confirmed cabinet secretary nominated by Lincoln. For other officers this was established by judicial precedent fairly recently when Biden terminated two Trump appointees to minor offices and they sued (and lost).

Similarly the president needs the Senate's advice and consent to enter into treaties. The Constitution is silent as to terminating Senate-confirmed executive officers, officers whose appointments did not require Senate confirmation, or treaties (abrogation). It's essentially settled law that the president does not require the Senate's advice and consent for any of those kinds of terminations.

Therefore, under the Constitution and the political and binding judicial precedents, there can be no law "onto which government workers can cling to refuse these requests."

Thanks for the explanation. Like I said, sounds wild that yes, the American Constitution does establish the president as basically a king over the Executive branch.

Copying what I typed elsewhere, I guess it's a testament to American democratic cultural history that no coup has occurred in American history when the president has such an absolute authority over the executive branch. Let's hope for the sake of the whole world it remains like this.

Is it not the same pretty much in all systems with unitary heads of state? Prime ministers surely have similar powers, subject only to votes of no confidence by their parliaments. Kings, where they have power, are also like this.

> I guess it's a testament to American democratic cultural history that no coup has occurred in American history

The various assassinations of presidents were kinds of coups, don't you think? Soon we'll find out if the CIA did or did not kill JFK. Suppose the CIA killed JFK -for argument's sake-, surely that would have been a coup, no?

Not really, based on the little I know from legislation. When it comes to public administration, the principle of "you can do whatever the law doesn't forbid you to do" is reversed: it can only do whatever the law says it can, and there are some general principles, written in the law as well, governing the flexibility in the interpretation as well. And specially they're not at will employees, there are very complicated processes to justify firing them.

For instance, there is no law allowing the president to do a SELECT * in the income tax database. So an honest government worker can just say f-off when he is requested to do so.

They’re wrong. They are advocating for an extremely niche and fascist view of executive power in America. One that goes beyond even strong Unitary executive theories (which themselves are a relatively new idea, stemming from George W. Bush).

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