[code_runner]

DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation, and I really do hope it will be get reined in before they can cause an issue so big that _even trump's croniest cronies_ have to admit what is going on.

For someone who claims to love freedom of speech, Elon is pretty quick to determine who can say what, and how much access to _his_ data people have.

[hintymad]

> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation

Could you share you reasons. From what I gather, the EO[1] does a few things to avoid potential law suits:

- It revised the purpose of an existing agency, USDS. The general purpose is not changed: "Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity". This avoids the issue of creating a new agency without the approval from Congress.

- It cites cites the sectio 3161 of title 5 of United States Code, to create DOGE as a "Temporary Organization" for only 18 months. This avoids the law suits that the EO creates a new government entity with out the approval of Congress.

- It orders each government agency to hire DOGE teams, each of which includes a lead, a lawyer, an HR, and an engineer. Agency heads should ensure that DOGE agenda is implemented. This is within the authority of an EO.

- The EO voids previous EOs to avoid law suits on future conflicts.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...

[voxic11]

The USDS wasn't established by Congress, it was established by Obama via Presidential memoranda and OMB budget request.

[hintymad]

Thanks! I knew that Obama created the USDS, but I thought he still needed the support from Congress. Well then, in that case I'm not sure why Trump would rather repurpose the USDS. Maybe it's easier to set up a temporary entity for DOGE that way?

[toomuchtodo]

It is in the same way you would assume an existing admin role to perform the highly privileged actions you want to take vs attempting to bootstrap access from scratch.

[mr_person]

Does anyone else notice how similar that is in spirit to what a malicious actor would look to do after gaining access to your network?

[Xelynega]

Or how a malicious actor inside your network would follow exactly this plan to do malicious things without your knowledge...

[speakfreely]

USDS was already kind of set up the way you'd want to set up DOGE if you were Elon. It was designed for talented people from the tech industry to do "temporary tours" in the government.

[speakfreely]

Pretty amusing that Obama essentially created a SPAC for Trump and Musk to use to dismantle the civil service.

[hintymad]

And a curious question: I was seeking the truth on the qualifier "obvious" and the legality of the EO in general, and I presented my case with references to the actual EO. My reasoning could be very wrong but at least I tried to stick with the discussion of the actual legality of the EO.

What's your reason to flag it and downvote it without counter arguments? Anything that does not agree with your rage is automatically morally bad bad bad?

[unsnap_biceps]

I believe that the existence of DOGE and the EO is legal. I don't believe that what they are actually doing (according to reports) is legal. I believe they are doing illegal things based upon Musk's own tweets, however, I do actually hope he is just trolling and it's not actually happening as he says it is.

That said, even if it's just trolling, trolling has no place in government. We all deserve better and we need to trust that what is said is the truth.

[gitaarik]

So what "trolling" are you referring to?

[plugger]

$50 million for condoms in Gaza is a good example.

[kurikuri]

Has there been any proof to this claim outside of the White House press secretary?

[dylan604]

> hope it will be get reined in before

oops. they already have access to data, and there's no unseeing what they've seen.

[_DeadFred_]

They are also tweeting 'findings' to create a narrative.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885964969335808217

[alfiedotwtf]

It's weird seeing America going so hellbent against Wikileaks (Hillary jokingly saying "can't we just drone him") vs now where the top brass are live tweeting leaks

[Xelynega]

Maybe we should look a little bit closer at who was hellbent against Wikileaks, and whether or not they're the same people "live tweeting leaks".

I have a feeling it's not the ethics of the actions that have changed, but the goals for doing so. In both cases it was about controlling a narrative.

[Terr_]

Musk is repeating his playbook from acquiring Twitter: Get wide access to systems, cherry-pick information, and then blast out a completely wrong summary of it, knowing that supporters will amplify it, believe it, and never check the source material.

For example, asserting that two groups are exchanging money simply because they're both customers at the same bank.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/03/the-twitter-files-playbo...

[yuppii]

Just because you do not like the information surfacing and how they have used the labor of tax payers to support and fund totally ridiculous and/or illegal activities both in US and overseas, does not make these "findings" less important. I am surprised how many people are approaching this in such a partisan way, even in a place like Hacker News.

[mcv]

Flynn and Musk attacking Lutheran organizations? I thought this administration was going to pretend to be super Christian.

[Dig1t]

The Lutheran organizations were facilitating mass migration. The money was being given to them to help bring in millions of people from places like Haiti.

https://x.com/Cernovich/status/1887267531267940517

They are providing receipts for all of the corruption they are uncovering.

>SERVICES FOR UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN.

https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1885872007062892568

LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE INC: $367,612,906

LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF THE SOUTH, INC: $134,190,472.95

LUTHERAN SERVICES FLORIDA, INC.: $82,937,819.95

[susiecambria]

If you are going to quote X, then at least find another source, one that is legit.

The truth is that LSS got grants to pay for the resettlement of legal immigrants. LSS was NOT "facilitating mass migration." LSS has a long tradition of this work and from what I know of their work in Washington, DC (the city, not the cap), it was exemplary.

[Dig1t]

“Legal migration” as in the CBP One app?

The US government ran ads in Haiti and other nations in French teaching people how to apply to come to America as asylum seekers.

The US government flew huge numbers of these people into the US and also paid organizations like LSS to “resettle” them.

This is mass migration and ALL of this was done using taxpayer money. Nobody voted for this, this is pure corruption.

It is so wonderful to see it all being dismantled and exposed.

[Dig1t]

I mean it’s raw data, putting “findings” in quotes does not change the fact that this is concrete evidence of corruption.

These are taxpayer dollars:

LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE INC: $367,612,906

LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF THE SOUTH, INC: $134,190,472.95

LUTHERAN SERVICES FLORIDA, INC.: $82,937,819.95

[susiecambria]

What exact corrupt activities has LSS engaged in?

Specifically, provide some evidence, please.

[dangus]

Of course there is “unseeing.” They can be tried for rather obvious crimes and thrown in prison.

[whatever1]

They will get a blanket pardon anyway. So in the end we will have to apologize to them.

[JumpCrisscross]

> will get a blanket pardon

Going into CMMS and IRS records almost certainly puts them in jeopardy of state crimes. Tight collections of only young, fervent ideologues have one role in military and political systems: cannon fodder.

[ty6853]

Supremacy clause will likely protect them. Even fed lon horiuchi, charged with sniping an innocent woman with a child in her arms, was able to claim supremacy long enough the state case was too stale to win.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Supremacy clause will likely protect them

Supremacy just covers removal [1]. The body of law being adjudicated doesn't change. And the President can't pardon state offences.

I'm not convinced all these folks will get convicted. But they're almost certainly spending their thirties in court.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_jurisdiction

[digitaltrees]

Don’t get pessimistic. That’s how norms truly disappear. They can and will be held accountable.

[dangus]

Easy fix, impeach and convict the president.

[spwa4]

Actually states can arrest them for any non-federal crime, punish them and incarcerate them and there is nothing Trump can do about it.

[dylan604]

What non-federal crimes and in what state are these crimes being committed that would give any state the jurisdiction to punish and incarcerate?

[spwa4]

Aside from the fact that I'm sure you can find such crimes ...

Prosecutors have the power to ask 2 years incarceration for jaywalking, without proof, 10 years for ignoring a stop sign and having not paying because the state has a wrong address for them and can let someone who empties a machine gun into a kindergarten walk free. But why go so far as to actually convict them of anything?

An IRS agent (and every state has them, not just the Federal government) could just accuse anyone of tax fraud 9 years ago, arrest, then deny bail (if the accusation is tax fraud it is the IRS agent that gets to approve or deny bail, not a judge), and then think about what they'll do next, for 3 years. They also have the power to block any particular bank account US-wide, or all bank accounts "that benefit an individual", so they can damage the person's family too.

No worries, after those 3 years, those now freshly declared innocent people will have to be paid 20 or so dollars per day to make it all alright (technically they don't, as they would not even be innocent, as the IRS does not need a conviction to declare you a criminal, but that's kicking someone hard in the nuts after incarcerating them for 3 years).

None of this requires even a single judicial decision, just an executive on your side. And Trump does NOT have the power to grant pardons over any non-federal matter (which is pretty ironic since part of the reason presidential pardons exist, is to prevent state or local governments from using state justice systems to influence the Federal government)

[gitaarik]

Yeah, we learned that trick from Biden. But when Biden does it then there's no problem with it.

[whatever1]

Who said that it is not problematic for Biden to pardon his son?

However, if you put them on a scale blanket pardoning the mob who stormed the capitol, attacked and injured police officers, threatened congress members, planted bombs and were looking to hang the Vice president because he would not overturn the election results where do you think it will lean towards?

The one is bad optics the other is literally giving blank checks to convicted enemies of the State.

[dylan604]

> where do you think it will lean towards?

Depends on who/when any of these theoretical charges occur. If they were to happen now-ish, then Biden would be thrown under the bus. Which I'm assuming is the opposite response to what you're trying to apply rational reasoning to. I think for at least the remainder of the next four years, applying rational reasoning will be a fool's errand.

[jeroenhd]

Trump already pardoned 1600 violent insurectionists. If they get tried now, they'll be out of jail the very next day.

[ty6853]

I was assured right here on HN that the data was public to begin with, and downvoted for suggesting it was possible unseen corruption. Hopefully if that is true they find it just matches what has released publicly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ty6853&next=42914628...

[littlestymaar]

This whole operation is as related to finding corruption exhibits as the Moscow trials were to finding traitors in the Red Army.

It is a (ridiculous) pretext for purging the system from people that the new power deems “uncooperative”.

[ty6853]

It is hard for me to imagine any entrenched civil service being cooperative with plans to shit can their jobs. So I'm not sure that means much. Almost by human nature, most people are uncooperative ( and deemed such ) with plans to end their dental plan and rent money.

[littlestymaar]

In democratic countries, civil servants aren't supposed to be changed after each elections, while they have their individual opinions they know their duty and follow the orders that come from the political power (and should they not obey to the order from above, there are disciplinary sanctions that can be leveraged against them).

And it's not some theoretical idea, in all Western democracies, every civil servant that has been in place for long enough has seen governments from multiple political sides. That's how it works.

Using illegal means to purge the institutions from undesired people is not something that happens in a democracy, this is unprecedented in the West since Gleichschaltung.

[leovingi]

>while they have their individual opinions they know their duty and follow the orders that come from the political power

Have you forgotten Trump's first presidential term? The resistance [1], the gleeful celebration of the "deep state" fighting back against Trump [2], a US general calling his Chinese counterparts before the 2020 election [3]?

Bureaucrats cannot fight against a democratically elected executive, call themselves the resistance and then be surprised when they are treated as the resistance.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/opinion/trump-fauci-deep-...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-top-general-secretly-cal...

[krapp]

Yeah, I mean Musk has literally tweeted that DOGE is "dismantling the radical-left shadow government."[0] This is not about efficiency or rooting out corruption, it's about persecuting political enemies and purging wrongthink.

Which was something people here screamed bloody murder about when they accused Biden of doing it, just by asking Twitter to moderate content, but I guess this is all fine now.

[0]https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886840365329608708

[dylan604]

> just by asking Twitter to moderate content, but I guess this is all fine now.

It's never wrong when it's something you agree with, and that's as far as Musk's belief in free speech goes. Allowing posts he agrees with, it's free speech. If it's something that sheds bad light on something he is, owns, or believes, it's bad and must be stopped. It's a classic as old as time

[unsupp0rted]

> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation

What laws does it break?

I like to watch those "Auditors" on Youtube who film in public places. Every cop assures them that filming a police officer / police station / inside a public library is illegal. About 25% of the time they detain them, and about 10% of the time they arrest them.

When they ask what law they've broken, they never get a straight answer.

[ty6853]

I think the one they're going for is that being a senior officer with material authority requires confirmation per the appointments clause, constitutional law instead of a federal statute.

Whether musk is operating as such seems dubious but possible.

[rawgabbit]

Is DOGE an advisory body or real government audit agency. It is acting like the later but is solely creation of Musk.

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/federal-unions-s...

https://www.hrdive.com/news/federal-workers-unions-challenge...

[wavefunction]

US' Privacy Act of 1974

[hiatus]

Some of the exceptions include:

- For routine uses within a U.S. government agency

- For law enforcement purposes

[alfiedotwtf]

Presidential Pardons

[nolok]

That doesn't make it legal. In fact it is my understanding that accepting a US pardon require some level of admitting guilt

[tartoran]

What if Trump dies in the office and doesn't get to pardon him?

[Maken]

Vance will be the president then.

[phendrenad2]

Unfortunately we're well past "legal" and "illegal" when it comes to the federal government. The last 4 presidents have pushed things through without the proper procedures. DOGE is just the one you're noticing.

[Dig1t]

It’s obviously completely legal actually. The president has the power to do this.

Reducing bureaucracy, rooting out corruption, and shrinking government waste also polls really well.

Democrats should be much more careful about positioning themselves on this long term.

If they are seen as the party of more bureaucracy and corruption (they already are) this will further tarnish their reputation and decrease their odds of winning elections in the future.

The way it’s currently playing out the people complaining the loudest seem like the most guilty benefactors of corruption, they are damaging their reputations and don’t even realize it.

[swat535]

> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation,

Which law(s) are they breaking? Please cite them specifically.

I'm genuinely asking because you are making a very assertive statement.

[senectus1]

state based information privacy laws would be my first go to.

[gitaarik]

And how are they breaking that?

[jklinger410]

> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation

This narrative infuriates me. Either you are right, and entire wings of our government are abetting a coup, or you are wrong, and our government has huge back doors that no one is watching.

Both realities reveal something urgently broken with the United States. In a way that should scare the entire western world to its core.

[darth_avocado]

DOGE is not illegal. However the legality of some of the things they do is under question. The current government, including DOGE is being operated like “Just do as many things as possible, so that the lawsuits can’t keep up”. While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo.

Edit: BTW this strategy has always been available, it’s just that career politicians aren’t incentivized to do this for “good” because they want long political careers.

[randallsquared]

> it’s just that career politicians aren’t incentivized to do this for “good” because they want long political careers.

That's not why: Reagan, Clinton, W, and Obama all had the opportunity for sweeping changes of this magnitude without regard to further political careers, but none of them wanted to make radical changes. Their view of the US government (even Reagan's!) was "basically doing a good job, but maybe needs a tweak". The current administration does not appear to share this view, though we'll see how that goes.

[nitwit005]

The presidents aren't kings. They need congressional support to get anything major done. They rarely support sweeping changes.

And more recently, congress essentially won't do anything, period. Either because the president is not of their party, or more recently, chaos within the Republican party itself.

Which is why you see presidents trying to do things with executive orders, but typically the courts (correctly) block overreach there. Trump is busy accumulating court rulings against his administration.

[ty6853]

A simplified view: since FDR the main difference in presidential action is whether to crank progress at 1 or 11 in the ever expanding book of regulations, favored tax nook and crannies, and various benefits plans for pay-to-play voters like SS recipients.

Trump is threatening to turn that knob to -1 or lower, for good or ill.

[shafyy]

> BTW this strategy has always been available, it’s just that career politicians aren’t incentivized to do this for “good” because they want long political careers.

Or, you know, maybe it's also because politicians who are not total psychos don't want to fuck over an entire country for their own gains.

[gitaarik]

Yes, or the psychos that were in control before were very happy with how the money machine was running for them, so they didn't need to change anything.

Now that some other psychos are taking over, the people that got used to the previous psychos are uneasy because change it not easy, especially rigorous change.

But maybe this will make people actually realize that the system was always flawed. The current administration just exposes that.

[shafyy]

How can you even compare the level of psycho-ness of the Biden administration to the Trump administration?

[jklinger410]

> While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo.

So the government is designed in such a way that someone can do illegal things without those currently running the systems simply saying "no?"

They have the power to do the things, and then we have to wait for it to be litigated. Watching the cases against Trump drop like flies after he got elected, knowing the Supreme Court is packed full of members of one party. This doesn't seem like a reliable solution.

[darth_avocado]

Yes. That’s how branches of government are set up. Judicial and legislative branches are supposed to keep the executive branch in check. Judicial branch is right now working to keep things in check but it will take time, resources and money to address every small thing. Opening the floodgates is a good strategy to overwhelm this branch. Which is where the legislative branch comes in. If they see the executive branch over reaching, you act to stop it. But our legislative branch is not acting (on both sides of the aisle). Btw this is the same problem a lot of modern democracies are facing and is not unique to the US.

[jfengel]

One side of the aisle is powerless. They can make speeches, but all legislative progress requires the approval of the Speaker of the House. Who will refer any legislation to a committee, which is also controlled by a committee chair of the same party.

[darth_avocado]

I don’t buy that argument because that side of the aisle has been voting with the other side on pretty much everything in the new term. I also don’t buy this argument because like I said in my original comment, the tactic of using presidential powers in this way was always available, including when this side of the aisle had the majority.

[ty6853]

Judicial branch has basically no enforcement. They can judge all they like, if the other branches or even states tell them to shove it up their ass, what can they do?

Not long ago Hawaii told the Supreme Court 'spirit of aloha' and the broken paddle trumps _Bruen_. And nothing stops them, the Supreme court has a few armed marshalls and little else.

[darth_avocado]

Yes that does happen and ideally the executive branch is responsible for enforcement, which creates an opportunity for the President to say no. But that undermines the courts and affects the faith people have in the Judicial system. The ramifications of that trust eroding are far and wide, and the economy would take a massive hit. People will then vote differently in 2 years and hope the legislative branch does its job.

One thing to also consider is that sometimes, the execution of the court orders will rely on local governments and locally elected officials in local enforcement bodies (like the Sheriff’s Office or the local PD). In that case, enforcement will vary across the country.

[intended]

The government isn't designed for one party to decide to play winner take all politics. It was assumed that people would find a way to work together, not that one party could punish bipartisanship within its own ranks, and then be rewarded for it.

Furthermore America has been moving towards this for decades. There has been openly shared plans on how this was to be achieved, for multiple different stages. From stacking the courts, to gerry mandering, to creating Fox, to strategies to stack the SC, to more recently project 2025.

---

I am feeling dumb for having to mention this, after re-reading your message. Am i right in suspecting you are aware of these strategies and are driving to a specific point?

[timeon]

> It was assumed that people would find a way to work together

This is not in line with first-past-the-post voting system. If you want to have "people work together" you need coalitions.

[mrguyorama]

The late 1700s predate most mathematical analysis of voting systems.

[intended]

Congress deadlock is part of that idea, that people have to find common cause to work together.

[gkoberger]

Yes.

If Elon says one thing and someone else thinks the opposite, it comes down to a battle of wills... and Elon doesn't back down. Sure, it can go to the courts, but the courts only matter if they're listened to or enforced. Neither of which will happen here.

[jfengel]

Yes. Precisely.

It's not reliable. It worked because Presidents had always been decent about it. The alternative would be to tie the system even further into knots, just to avoid a problem that would require cartoonish villainy.

Until now.

[timeon]

What would you expect from system that did not change much since 18th century? As example France had like 5 iterations in between.

[dangus]

lol, DOGE is obviously illegal. Trump created a fake department of the government without congressional appropriation of funds.

[darth_avocado]

Not everything in the government needs congressional appropriation of funds.

[dangus]

How do DOGE employees get paid?

If the answer is “they don’t” then they aren’t government employees or contractors and shouldn’t be inside private areas of government buildings and systems.

If the answer is anything else then it’s either a misappropriation of funds or an illegal private pay scheme.

[HumblyTossed]

> Both realities reveal something urgently broken with the United States.

Our government operations expect people to conduct themselves as adults.

Clearly, if we survive Elon's coup, we need to encode these norms into law.

[llamaimperative]

IMO it might be a good time for a constitutional convention after this. Our system has always had gaping holes in it and I think the outcome of all this could be catastrophic for so many normal Americans across the political spectrum that they'd be willing to actually close many of them in good faith.

[jltsiren]

The broken part is the idea that the legislative and judicial branches can act as checks and balances for the executive branch. In the end, the executive branch is the only branch with the ability to do something. The other two are just a bunch of talking heads.

Many other republics have split the executive branch into multiple semi-independent centers of power. The head of state and the head of government can be separate roles. A directly elected president may be responsible for signing laws and appointing senior officials, while a prime minister subordinate to the parliament may be in charge of running the executive branch. And government departments may have dual leadership with a politically appointed minister setting the directions and a career director appointed by the president running the department. Because the director's term is independent from the political appointees, they can refuse to comply if the minister asks something illegal.

Republics have all kinds of failure modes. For example, Hungary was supposed to be a robust parliamentary republic. But due to non-proportional elections, slightly over 50% of votes were enough for a sufficient supermajority to rewrite the constitution.

[neom]

DW covered this today with a professor who seems to generally know what he's talking about and from what I could tell is not spinning anything in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpKhyL9PEPQ

He does a good job of explaining the facts of the legalities etc.

[taurknaut]

I'm not really sure if you can call it a "coup" if all parties involved admit he was legitimately elected. Furthermore, this isn't exactly a bait-and-switch. He told us what exactly what he wanted to do. We already knew he would try to do illegal stuff. If you break the law and nobody who voted for you complains (unrealistic I realize, but bear with me), is the rule of law really that secure? If we only criticize Trump when he breaks the law, but not the democrats when they send arms to Israel in blatant violation of the Leahy Laws, how can we get upset when people push the boundaries further?

It's been more than 20 years (or might be about that?) that we passed the law that said "if you prosecute Bush for warcrimes we will invade the Hague". Granted, we were never a treaty cosigner (sharing the lovely company of Russia, North Korea, and Iran), but it's very convenient we have a "laws for thee but not for me" attitude.

Look I'm just saying we've been headed in this direction for a while and I don't expect the institutions we're supposed to care about preserving doing much to stop it. Americans need to get a lot more mad if they want politicians to represent them well. I'd hazard a guess most americans have never contacted their representatives, vote in their non-swing state (effectively making their vote worthless), and pat themselves on the back for a civic duty well done. I think we've gotten ourselves into a position where politicians who have spent most of their careers failing to pass legislation now need to pull political ability from who the hell knows where to actually follow through on their promise to fight facism. Very grim times.

[moogly]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup

[exceptione]

What most people do seem not to grasp here is that MAGA is full steam working to make sure it doesn't matter who you are going to vote. Trump is just the smoke screen.

IF, by a rare circumstance, the media moguls decide to not sane-wash the incredible fire-hose of lies, corruption, fake news, and religious extremism, and the DEMs get into office in some next term, those DEMs will find the state destroyed beyond repair.

Health epidemics, broken foreign relation relations, dysfunctional government agencies (filled to the brim with stupid or evil clients from the shadow elites), downright abolished agencies, information sphere completely muddied in Musk-style, tech oligarchs sworn allegiance to MAGA (done), abolishment of fact checkers (in progress), removal of experts and intelligentsia (busy), impoverished voters (in progress).

You can enter the cockpit, but MAGA makes sure you are never going to fly again. If you want to get somewhere, you will need the fixers.

People here are discussing legalities with a situational awareness of 3 millimeter maximum. This feverish is understandable, we MUST interpret things like they are normal. If you want to keep it that way, don't read the next sentence.

As soon as the news broke of Trumps reelection, all cases where dropped quickly. That is all you need to now.

[tmaly]

I just saw a thread by a lawyer on X that broke down the EO creating DOGE.

It was very interesting how they got around things.

[code_runner]

They seem to be still be deciding what the EO actually is, and they also didn’t create a non-governmental entity like trump promised.

[insane_dreamer]

the only entity that could _maybe_ rein it in would be Congress, specifically the Senate.

Even SCOTUS, by the time it gets all the way there, the damage would be done and it would take years to rebuild.

A complete clusterfk by design.

[dmitrygr]

No personal option stated or implied, but: exactly this was clearly promised before the election, and it is being delivered right now. The people voted for this: a majority of the American people. Democracy, no?

[tdb7893]

In American democracy winning a single election doesn't change the constitution or even the laws at all. There are separate processes for those things that haven't happened. The monetary decisions the executive branch is making right now are explicitly reserved for Congress, which notably hasn't passed a law for it.

Voting for someone doesn't imply they aren't bound by existing rules.

Edit: There's also more to be said here about restrictions on American democracy (e.g. gerrymandering, first past the post, disenfranchisement, financial barriers to entry for candidates, lack of choice for political parties, etc) that make the US not some bastion for democratic governance. I'm not an expert but the current chaos is at least partially enabled by the flaws in American democracy (rigid 2 party control is a good example of a generally undemocratic force, many Americans would prefer more parties but aren't being represented, that is enabling executive overreach).

[hatthew]

People have to vote for one party or the other. Voting for a party doesn't mean they want every single thing promised by that candidate, it just means they think the sum of all things from that candidate is better than the sum of all things from the other candidate. If this whole DOGE thing was hypothetically not directly connected with any party, I would guess that most americans would have voted against it.

[gitaarik]

Yeah, all this chaos rather shows how flawed the whole American political system is.

If the current administration is able to do all this, imagine what previous administrations have all done without our approval. Only now people are shaken up about it, because the current administration is rigorously changing things. But it doesn't mean that it was better before, it was always corrupt, now the corruption just becomes more obvious to us.

[amarcheschi]

I do not get why electing a leader with anti democratic tendencies should be viewed as the pinnacle of democracy

[Tool_of_Society]

He didn't even get a majority of the 60% of voter aged Americans who voted.

[Volundr]

> The people voted for this: a majority of the American people. Democracy, no?

Does this mean it was wrong of Republicans to have tried to stop anything Obama or Biden was trying to do? Or question it's legality?

I keep hearing this "the people voted for it argument", but unless your prepared to condemn things like limiting the scope of the ACA and refusing to confirm justices, it's hard to take the argument seriously.

[code_runner]

Trump also said he could shoot someone in broad daylight on fifth avenue. I think that might be against some rules though. Idk maybe it can be a campaign promise!

[braebo]

That’s perfectly legal now that his maga Supreme Court ruled that the President is a King above the law.

[code_runner]

Elon shit posting on twitter and donating hundreds of millions of dollars to a candidate who was elected doesn’t make elons shit posts legal precedent

[rawgabbit]

The US believes in the rule of law. That means those in power cannot ignore rules and operational procedures put in place to prevent abuse of power.

What you are saying is Trump won so he can effectively shut down agencies and create new ones by fiat. And if those new agencies break laws that is fine.

As a hypothetical, suppose DOGE amasses a large dataset of every resident in the US and it then identifies “illegals” and instructs the deputized military to deport this group of people to prison in El Salvador via secret messaging beyond FOIA reach. This is not OK. Especially if the deported were not given due process to defend themselves in court. What if a few of the deported were actual citizens and had their identities mixed up with someone else.

[jedilord]

How is it an illegal operation?

[exceptione]

I don't know? To this day people still fuss about concentration camps here, while the leader clearly had given authority to do so. People are just too political these days.

By the way, I heard the Palestinian Problem is going to be solved for good?

[mplewis]

DOGE does not have the authority to shut down independent agencies of the US Government such as USAID.

[impulser_]

They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.

[kemayo]

President doesn't have authority to shut them down by EO either. Congress does, yes.

(It's one of those "power of the purse" things. If Congress has created an organization and funded it, the executive is required to spend that money on it.)

[paulvnickerson]

> President doesn't have authority to shut them down by EO either

I'm not sure they are being shut down. USAID is being restructured for instance and folded into the State Department.

[kemayo]

I imagine the legality of that depends on the exact details of the law that created the organization. If it specifies that it be an independent organization, then that's probably not allowed either. If it's just "these things must be done" then State could probably handle it.

(Either way, the exact approach they've taken so far with the total freeze and shutdown, then later saying they'll totally start doing the job again somewhere else later on, seems sketchy.)

[mrtesthah]

The state dept issued an evacuation order for all USAID staff overseas. How will they accomplish their mission? This includes medical care and distribution of HIV medication to up to 20 million people.

[impulser_]

Yeah, that why I said both. It depends on what they are doing. USAID probably needs congress, but other things might just need an EO. The point is DOGE isn't doing this, the President is. Elon doesn't have authority that Democratics are saying he does. He simply informs the President, "Hey, USAID is spending taxpayers money to fund xyz in xyz you might want to shut it down". The President then goes "Yeah, I think we should shut it down let's freeze it and we'll abolish it". Then they go down the path of abolishing it and with the USAID they will probably get congress to do it. Until then they can freeze it because he appoint Marco Rubio has the acting admin.

[exceptione]

> He simply informs the President,

That man is way too friendly. Just before the election he gave $300.000.000,00 to Trump. And he is so special, eh! He can read air-gaped, highly sensitive data that no one should see from government systems, just using his mind/indoctrinated minions. I hate it when people speculate this might have to do, amongst things, with dark money to be made in intelligence/elite level international crime.

[rastignack]

Then, the president is acting illegally, and not doge ?

[lupusreal]

That would make the executive orders illegal, or at best invalid. It wouldn't make DOGE illegal. DOGE is private citizens giving their opinions about how the government should work to a politician who happens to be listening to them (for now, but probably not long given that politician's track record for getting into feuds with former allies.)

Citizens voicing their opinions about the government is clear cut First Ammendment activity, of precisely the sort the first ammendment was intended to protect in the first place. People need to get a grip.

[jacobr1]

> DOGE is private citizens giving their opinions about how the government should work to a politician who happens to be listening to them

No, DOGE was formalized as a division of the US Digital Service. Employees of DOGE are federal government employees. Some of them, like Elon are "Special Government Employees" which is a short-term category and avoids certain disclosures.

Creating DOGE and enabling them to have access to certain IT systems is legal ... but what data, how much control they have, what they can demand of other departments is subject to all sorts of laws and controls which may or may not be being followed at the moment.

[svachalek]

Citizens voicing their opinion don't usually have unlimited access to government databases.

[code_runner]

This is easily the most willfully uninformed take on this topic I have seen yet

[outside1234]

The president can't decide to stop spending money Congress has passed by EO.

[buzer]

That sounds weird. I can understand that you cannot take money that was promised for thing X and spend in thing Y but if you can reduce the X spending I don't think there is any issue.

Now I do not know if Congress has explicitly required X to provide certain thing. If they did then there might be some issue if X fails to provide it. It's probably easy to say someone is accountable for it if it's something objective (let's say building for Congress) but if it's subjective it could get tricky.

[llamaimperative]

No, the executive is not allowed either to redirect or to stop or slow the Congressionally apportioned funds.

This is called impoundment and it's unequivocally illegal.

[polski-g]

Correct. But Congress doesn't and didn't ever say "spend $250k on transgender operas." Congress' laws are ambiguous and rely on the administrative state to dish out money to a specific cause. The law probably said something like "promote health policy in the Europe".

The Trump administration will repurpose those funds to things more aligned with GOP preferences.

[zzzeek]

neither have happened and virtually all employees of USAID have been put on leave at the orders of the acting deputy administrator.

(via CNN) - It is not legal for the president to unilaterally “abolish, move, or consolidate USAID”. He needs to have congressional authorization to do so.

[impulser_]

The current acting deputy administrator is Marco Rubio who the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State works directly for the President.

The President hasn't shut down the USAID yet. They just froze it with the intent to abolish it.

[zosima]

DOGE gets its authority through the president. The president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions.

The exact shape or form of USAID is also up to the president. It was created through an executive order, and can of course also be transformed through one.

[dodobirdlord]

It was consolidated into the Department of State as part of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 as an agency with an administrator and responsibility for administrating the distribution of aid under certain preexisting laws. So it is straightforwardly outside of the authority of the president to disband the agency, as Congress has provided that it shall exist. And it is likewise outside of the authority of the president to reduce it to an inactive status, as it has certain Congressionally-established responsibilities that it must perform.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/cha...

[zosima]

I didn't say the president could disband it. I said the president could transform it.

[dodobirdlord]

The comment you replied to was discussing the president’s authority to shut down agencies. (And lack thereof.)

[msarvar]

I have seen this regurgitated several times on this site now. This is blatantly false, congress passed a law in 1998 to establish USAID. The EO was made with authority that had been granted by another law. That law does not allow the President to abolish it:

> Unless abolished pursuant to the reorganization plan submitted under section 6601 of this title, and except as provided in section 6562 of this title, there is within the Executive branch of Government the United States Agency for International Development as an entity described in section 104 of title 5.

- 22 U.S.C. §6563

All it takes is a simple google search.

[pfannkuchen]

The actual law is a high dimensional interaction of all active legislation. Predicting what the legal system will do is hard and often cannot be achieved with high reliability with a google search.

This is why lawyers exist. Presumably doge and trump have access to good lawyers. I’m not asserting that they are right, just that a shallow legal analysis is error prone and looking at a single law likely does not yield useful prediction making capability.

[jacobr1]

Also malicious compliance is an option. Maybe they could name a single person the official administrator, given them an office in a basement and officially comply, while effectively shutting everything down. The extent to which fulfilling the intent of legislation vs relying on the discretion of the executive to interpret it within, and as a matter of precedent deferring to executive discretion by default in court cases, probably enables many more abuses than have been contemplated prior to this presidency.

[msarvar]

The OP asserted that USAID was created by EO and that the president is free to do what he wants with it. That statement is blatantly false. How does court decide is not relevant to this discussion, because as you said it is speculative.

[llamaimperative]

> The president definitely has the authority to audit and/or stop illegal, fraudulent or just wasteful transactions.

This is not true. Obviously.

That would give the President carte blanche authority over the budget by merely declaring "illegal/fraudulent/wasteful."

Go re-read the Constitution before posting this bullshit.

[skissane]

DOGE didn’t shut down USAID. Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing it and they did.

Musk is essentially a presidential advisor, and legally an advisor can advise the President to do pretty much anything. Even if the thing they are advising the President to do is illegal, the President is the one who bears the legal responsibility for the action, not the advisor.

In really extreme cases, like if Musk were advising Trump to commit genocide, or carry out a military coup, or transfer a billion dollars out of US Treasury into someone’s personal bank account, and Trump followed the advice, Musk might be held legally liable for having given it. But shutting down a government agency isn’t anything like that. The legality of shutting it down is debatable, but even if ultimately held to be illegal, it isn’t the genocide or military coup or blatant corruption kind of illegal.

[zzzeek]

> Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing and they did.

which is illegal. USAID can only be "shut down" by an act of Congress

[lupusreal]

> Trump and Rubio [...] did.

Might be illegal.

> Musk talked Trump and Rubio

Obviously isn't, no matter how many salutes he does or how many emeralds he owns.

[nimish]

Is it? It's explicitly just a rename of the USDS. Them not using govslack is stupid though

[olalonde]

Stupid question but don't the Republicans control all branches of government? Couldn't they just declare whatever DOGE is doing legal (if it's indeed illegal)?

[kemayo]

They could†, but they haven't.

†: They actually couldn't, without stripping the filibuster from the Senate.

[olalonde]

Not familiar with "filibuster". Does it mean that Democrats could effectively prevent a potential "DOGE is legal" bill from passing by endlessly debating it?

[kemayo]

Originally, yes. These days a "talking filibuster" like that is almost never used, apart from occasionally when someone wants to be dramatic about it.

There's a thing called a vote for cloture, meaning a vote you take about whether to stop debate and vote on the issue. In the US Senate, a cloture vote requires 60 votes (out of 100) to pass. So there's a "procedural filibuster", whereby one side will announce that they're not going to vote for cloture, but the other side won't force them to actually keep talking so the chamber can move on and do other things.

This used to be quite uncommon, and things would regularly become law with a bare 50%+1 majority, but nowadays -- basically since ~2008 -- there's a de-facto "nothing that can't get 60% support in the Senate can become law" rule in effect. With a specific carve-out for a few things that're not allowed to be filibustered, mostly around passing a budget, that are just barely keeping the government functioning.

Personally, I intensely dislike this, and feel like the shift to default-filibuster-everything is a major cause of the growing dissatisfaction with the system that ultimately gave us Trump.

[llamaimperative]

Around 2008 you say? Like when we elected a black man to the Presidency? What a coincidence.

[plagiarist]

Oh, that would be nice for a change. My understanding is they no longer debate it, they just send an email to the Senate saying "I filibuster" and the bill is tabled.

[amarcheschi]

With the cross symbol I thought you were proposing to... Deal with doge in an unconventional, yet fast, disruptive and mangionesque way

[kemayo]

It's a dagger symbol! Which... I guess doesn't entirely avert that implication.

(But really, it's the traditional second tier footnote symbol after an asterisk, which I couldn't use here because it triggers italics.)

[amarcheschi]

It looks like the dead cross symbol on Wikipedia

[dangus]

That’s like asking if Darth Vader would release a report on whether the destruction of Alderaan was legal.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Is it actually illegal if it's the pet project of the president, who has been given absolute power by the rest of the government?

[tdb7893]

Congressional inaction isn't assent. The Constitution clearly and explicitly gives the power of the purse to Congress (and this is also the understanding of I think Madison in the Federalist Papers and the interpretation we've had for now almost the entire history of the US so there's no reasonable dispute of this). Until Congress passes a law allowing this the president is constitutionally obligated to take care of the laws passed.

Though you do have a point of even if it's illegal who will enforce it? The courts have started to some but are necessarily reactive and slow.

[blibble]

the constitution is just an old piece of paper if the president controls the supreme court

personally I think this was Gödel's Loophole

[stanleykm]

The president isn’t a king.

[dylan604]

In what ways is a president restricted from acting like a king when the other two bodies of government meant to act as a check and balance have capitulated any of those checks and essentially give carte blanche to the president?

[outside1234]

It is a good question. Hopefully we get an answer before we are all bankrupt.

No idea why the markets aren't in freefall at this point.

[hatthew]

I guess the markets think we'll get an answer before a full collapse

[icedchai]

I'm skeptical that billionaires will tank the very thing from which all their wealth is derived, at least not long term. We will continue to see tremendous short term volatility.

[dylan604]

> at least not long term.

But this is the very thing. In every single financial crisis, the uber wealthy accumulate even more at the expense of everyone else that is loosing everything.

[Marsymars]

Where would you park your money rather than US equities?

[SketchySeaBeast]

You and I would like to think that, but he's been given carte blanche by the people who should be his checks and balances and the supreme court has made anything he does in the course of his duties legal.

[psytrancefan]

This is all the Curtis Yarvin influence. There is that period in US history that the president was acting more like a king, Taft to FDR. They were doing much more executive orders then that we have been use to the past 80 years.

It all is quite unsettling. Then the fact it is Trump doing this is just something else all together too.

I am a bit worried how the country is going to deal with this level of change. We aren't even 3 weeks in.

[seattle_spring]

Surprised Yarvin hasn't been mentioned much on HN since this all started. The last few weeks have been a transparent implementation of his plans.

[pohl]

I would say yes, insofar as the text and SCOTUS interpretations of the constitution count as law, so anything that violates, for example, the separation of powers would be illegal.

[SketchySeaBeast]

But hasn't the SCOTUS also ruled that anything the President does as a part of his duties legal? Where does that ruling actually end?

[code_runner]

I believe that’s for criminal prosecution and probably has a lot of room for additional precedents to be set

[SketchySeaBeast]

I hope that that precedent starts to get set here, because right now it's not looking good.

[aeternum]

What do you think about the legality of each federal department having millions in kickbacks to Politico in the form of hidden premium subscriptions?

What about USAID being used to pay celebrities but only those that support one of the political parties?

[floatrock]

Are we complaining about the millions the feds pay SpaceX for their starlink terminals? Are we concerned about the government subscriptions to Bloomberg feeds?

I'll get rage-y about this one when someone explains what a Politico premium subscription provides and why it was a corrupt purchase. Maybe it's a valid information data service that provides key information to whatever agency purchased it, purchased using an appropriate bidding contract. Or maybe it wasn't.

But the point is show me why that was an inappropriate purchase while Starlink and Bloomberg feeds aren't.

Unfortunately doing that takes investigation and due-process, and it doesn't score the same propaganda points as just yelling "See?! My political opponent had the government as a customer!!"

[remarkEon]

You see the difference between a Starlink and Bloomberg terminal, and a "Pro" subscription to Politico, right?

[floatrock]

I assume you're insinuating a politico pro subscription just lets you read clickbait articles without a paywall, and that's unreasonable?

Is that what a pro subscription is? Or does it provide useful data to a government agency that works on the ground in many different countries?

How about show me the government contract for the purchase that outlines what information they're purchasing? Who else bid on it, and why did Politico win? If they don't provide anything beyond clickbait articles, it should be pretty obvious that they were arbitrary chosen over whatever right-leaning competitor also bid on that sweet sweet government bucks. Every government purchase has mounds of paperwork, lets look into what the contract purchaser was actually trying to get from it before deciding this is a partisan bribe. Or does that take too much work and due-process, and we're just trying to score some quick smear-the-opposition rage points?

I'm all against government corruption, but show me this is corruption rather than a reasonable data purchase.

[remarkEon]

No I'm insinuating that Starlink and Bloomberg are infrastructure, with clear use cases for DoD, the IC, and many many others. No one had really head of Politico Pro until DOGE cut off the subscriptions, and now suddenly it's some critical thing that this government "agency" can't live without when they "work" on the ground in many different countries, like you're claiming. This is despite the fact that we have, ya know, multiple intelligence agencies whose job it is to tell us interesting and useful things about those countries. I don't even know if Politico Pro does that kind of reporting, foreign intelligence. But it doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if this is corruption either.

[floatrock]

> I don't even know if Politico Pro does that kind of reporting

lol, so you don't know what Politico Pro does, but you know it was worthless, and it doesn't matter because the propaganda points have already been scored and the news cycle has turned over.

This is the world you want to be cheerleading for? Really?

[Volundr]

Starlink yes, Bloomberg no. Can you explain it to me?

[zzzeek]

have them audited by the Office of the Inspector General.

Which is not very easy right now as Trump illegally fired many of them across 17 different offices.

The illegality and unconsitutionalism of the actions being taken to dismantle agencies and placement private citizens without background checks or proper auditing / security procedures inside of highly critical and often classified systems are the issue, not whether or not USAID should be audited or abolished. There are proper channels for that. they are being bypassed (even though fully available to the President with all three branches of government in Republican control).

[jondwillis]

Since we are doing whataboutism, let's also bring up the ~$1 trillion PPP program, ripe with fraud, enabled and designed by Donald Trump, which helped kick off the current wave of inflation.

>The cost per job saved for one year was $169,000 to $258,000, which was much higher than the average amount—$58,200—paid in wages and benefits to small-business employees in 2020. [1]

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2...

[aeternum]

Agreed, ripe with fraud and overall an unfair use of taxpayer money. Poorly thought out even for an emergency measure and we should not do it again.