Trump renews extraordinary post-9/11 powers

[TRUMP, LIKE HIS PREDECESSORS, KEEPS ALL OF THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL WAR AND EMERGENCY POWERS FOR THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND ITS MORE THAN 600 AGENCIES]

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9-10-18

by Robbert Donachie, washingtonexaminer.com

President Trump is renewing a post-9/11 emergency proclamation that gives him broad powers to mobilize the military, hire and fire military officials, and work around limits on the number of generals that can serve.

For the second time during his presidency, Trump announced Monday his administration is renewing the post-9/11 emergency proclamation. Trump is the third [14th] president to renew the proclamation.

“Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2018,” Trump said in a notice to be sent to Congress.

The proclamation grants the president, in addition to the aforementioned powers, the ability to call up the national guard and deploy troops overseas.

Former President George W. Bush signed Proclamation 7643 in 2001, days after terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

The National Emergencies Act requires that the president renew the emergency at the end of each year or at the date the proclamation lapses. Congress is also supposed to review the state of the emergencies every six months, but it, notably, never has.

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Editor’s Note:

In 1973 a senate committee reviewed the war and emergency powers the office of the President had claimed since 1933. They released Senate Report 93-549. Here are excerpts from that report:

Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency.

These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. These hundreds of statutes delegate to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners. This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal Constitutional processes.

Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may:
seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens.