Comment by davorak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by davorak | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> id the President make a finding? Here, the President did make a finding. At that point, the courts' jurisdiction gives way to the President's discretion.

This seems incorrect

> cases in which the Executive possesses a constitutional or legal discretion

In this case though the laws wording would determine where the discretion starts and ends. "... whenever he shall find as a fact that such country—" so the president is limited by a.1 and a.2[1], the president was only granted discretion in under those proscribed limits.

So a find that says ~"neither a.1 or a.2 is occurring therefore I impose a tariff as president"(claiming no conditions to impose a tariff under the law are met but declaring a tariff anyway) seems reviewable by the court from your sources. Only having a finding is not enough, the finding has to follow the limits of discretion put forth by the law in question.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1338

edit to remove double negative

The court’s power is limited to determining whether the President made a finding in the nature of the finding required by the law. What the court can’t do is then second guess that finding—analyzing it substantively to determine whether it is correct or not.

> What the court can’t do is then second guess that finding—analyzing it substantively to determine whether it is correct or not.

Asking weather if follows a.1 and a.2 does not seem 100% independent of asking if it is correct or not.

"I as president claim a.1, and a.2 are not being violated their for the law allows me to impose a tariff"

"I as president stubbed my toe this morning therefore a.1 and a.2 have been violated and I will be imposing a tariff."

"a.1 and a.2 have been violated, no I will not tell you how, therefor tariff."

You are saying it is black and white, but it does not seem so in the examples above.

That's just not true. This case is a specific example of exactly the opposite. Read the opinion. It's literally a panel of federal court judges, one a Trump appointee, going through each justification and calling bullshit on each one.

Lower courts get decisions wrong all the time.

More to the point, there’s a difference between the two statues. One of the points raised by the court in the current case is that IEEPA does not have that kind of “whenever the President shall find” language:

> That may be true of the NEA, whose Court Nos. 25-00066 & 25-00077 Page 41 operation requires only that the President “specifically declare[] a national emergency.” 50 U.S.C. § 1621(b); see also Yoshida II, 526 F.2d at 581 n.32. 13 But IEEPA requires more than just the fact of a presidential finding or declaration: “The authorities granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purpose.” 50 U.S.C. § 1701(b) (emphasis added). This language, importantly, does not commit the question of whether IEEPA authority “deal[s] with an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the President’s judgment. It does not grant IEEPA authority to the President simply when he “finds” or “determines” that an unusual and extraordinary threat exists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com