Summary

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) criticized Donald Trump for illegally firing inspectors general without giving Congress 30 days’ notice.

Trump recently dismissed the USAID inspector general after a report exposed the administration’s mismanagement of foreign aid, putting $489 million in food assistance at risk.

Grassley, a longtime watchdog advocate, said Trump could still remove officials legally by placing them on administrative leave.

  • thallamabond@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    With full control of the executive, Congressional, and supreme Court, all of this stuff could be done legally. Trump is CHOOSING not to for the sole purpose of extending the power of the executive as has been described by many (Unitary Executive Theory). These senators and representatives would be smart not to cede any power, they will not get it back.

  • chingadera@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    You know I was thinking it was a possibility, but thank fucking God Chuck Grassley said it was against the law. Up until right now I was on the fence.

  • MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    You need enough Republicans speaking up that they can impeach Trump. Dems are being quiet to let Republicans lead on this, they are the only ones who could possibly do it. Democrats leading will only make Republicans defend him.

    • xyzzy@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

      I don’t mean to be rude, but are you from Candyland? You need 20 Republicans in the Senate to convict him and remove him from office. He tried to kill them and they still didn’t convict him.

      It won’t happen.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I’m largely inclined to agree, but his point stands that the Democrats are completely impotent in the current situation (at least legally). Whatever slim chance there is rests with Republican infighting.

        I suppose if I try hard I can cling to a hope. He indirectly threatened their lives whole going out the door. A lot of the stakeholders likely genuinely thought he was going to go away without them having to alienate the Trump fanatics. So opting out of second impeachment they perceived as their best shot at retaining power.

        Now Trump is quite directly doing everything to render the legislature powerless. Threaten their lives, that’s one thing, but to deny them the power they won, well maybe that’s a different thing…

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Yea you’ve got a good point actually. I would say the GOP are got damn toddlers, but that would be an insult to toddlers everywhere and you don’t want to end up on the toddler cartel shit list.

    • diskmaster23@lemmy.one
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      13 hours ago

      That’s why personally I am not sitting here being outraged and Facebooking the outrage. It ain’t gonna do anything.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Trump? Doing illegal things??? Shocked! I am shocked! Yes, that’s the word. No other word describes my feelings on this! Shocked I say!!!

    …not that shocked actually.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      13 hours ago

      If only there was some sort of indication he doesn’t follow the law, like previous impeachments, actual court convictions and decades of being a real estate developer.

      • Jessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 hours ago

        If only there were. For now, we’ll just have to let Donald “I’m a convicted felon” Trump do whatever he wants.

  • otto@sh.itjust.works
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    14 hours ago

    This guy is fourth in the line of succession for the presidency. Just something to keep in mind.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    14 hours ago

    Doesn’t matter. Official acts. Even apart from that, who’s going to investigate or prosecute? DoJ?

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      13 hours ago

      In theory an illegal act would have Congress impeach him, and the Senate hold a trial to find him guilty or innocent, if found guilty he is removed. In theory if he refuses to step down the U.S. military would remove him under their oath of office as well. For which since he was removed by the Senate he would be guilty of unknown (likely treason)

      The truth is that the Senate will not vote to find him guilty. But yeah, what also is interesting there is while treason is charged in a civilian court, an acting commander in chief is a member of the military, and thus could likely be held for treason charges as acting military as well. Both treason charges have a maximum sentence of death. Minimum sentence is likely dishonorable discharge minimum 5 years prison. (For a 78 year old man with court times, pretty much life in Prison). Being that he is a high profile case and it is military based, one would hope they would use the money his administration put towards Guantanamo to hold him their without bail until conviction.). That is but a dream of justice though.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        an acting commander in chief is a member of the military, and thus could likely be held for treason charges as acting military as well.

        No he’s not. The president is C-in-C of the military but he is explicitly still a civilian. The founding fathers wanted to ensure the military was always under the command of a civilian government.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 hours ago

          Makes sense, I figured it would fall under this, but re-reading the wording and yours it makes sense that he isn’t working FOR them.

          “Civilians working for the military. This includes contractors, employees of defense companies, and other civilians who are working for the military. Any of these individuals can find themselves subject to military law and in a military tribunal depending on the circumstances.”

          So yeah, minimum 5 years and max death still. But it would never happen

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        14 hours ago

        Nobody at DoJ is going to investigate a sitting president without full approval from AG.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          I mean articles of impeachment have already been started for Gaza, which will lose, but he is being sued by an outside group for this, and I think that’s why he’s mentioning it, to see which other Congress members may be interested in filing articles about this as well.

        • Placebonickname@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          I agree with this statement, but even if an attorney general did approve the investigation what would happen if they found out Trump really did break the wall? They can’t teach him with the Republicans control in the house and the Senate wouldn’t convict even if the house did impeach.

          Gotta find some way to pray that guy at the office without relying on the Senate or the Congress.