Powers of the American Presidency

“The executive Power shall be vested in a

President of the United States of America.”

Article II of the Constitution

Over the last three years, the Democrats – MSM – Lawfare complex have tried to convince us that Lt. Col. Vindman or other Executive branch officers are entitled to adjudicate decisions of President Trump. Of course, they are not. Before the 2016 elections, there were no doubts about it. The quotes below come from Benjamin Wittes, writing in the Lawfare Blog, May-July 2016.  Lawfare is the brain behind the resistance strategy, per sundance.

Trump and the Powers of the American Presidency

Part I

[The Presidency] is vested with a truly awesome thing: “the executive power” of the entire federal government. 

Part III

Most subtly but perhaps most importantly, the nation’s intelligence priorities are the President’s alone to decide. 

… constitutionally, the executive branch is one person. Everyone else is just his arms, hands, and fingers.

Part II

As Antonin Scalia once wrote, the vesting of the Executive Power in the hands of the President “does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power.” It is, I want to stress, not inevitable that the presidency works this way. It is a design feature of the American republic on a matter about which other republics have decided differently. 

I say all this as someone who was a fan of Alexander Hamilton before being one was cool. … “Energy in the Executive,” wrote Hamilton, “is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks. …” The reason? “A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.” … The key to “energy in the executive,” in Hamilton’s view, is the branch’s unity. It is from that unity that the executive’s other capacities derive. … the fact that the president’s power is all vested in a single person makes it possible for that person to act quickly and decisively.

Then Wittes quotes Justice Scalia again:

Under our system of government, the primary check against prosecutorial abuse is a political one. The prosecutors who exercise this awesome discretion are selected, and can be removed, by a President whom the people have trusted enough to elect. Moreover, when crimes are not investigated and prosecuted fairly, nonselectively, with a reasonable sense of proportion, the President pays the cost in political damage to his administration.

These posts are highly recommended as an insight into the thinking that led to the Democratic party’s attempt to usurp power before the election (the Spygate), the coup attempt(s) after the elections, and the consolidation of the Deep State.

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