Frustrated that he cannot get any legislation passed in a divided Congress, President Donald Trump and senior members of the administration are considering using a highly controversial series of executive orders that would serve to help enact federal policies on issues such as immigration, according to Axios:
“The White House thinking is being heavily influenced by John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote the Bush administration’s justification for waterboarding after 9/11.
Yoo detailed the theory in a National Review article, spotted atop Trump’s desk in the Oval Office, which argues that the Supreme Court’s 5-4 DACA ruling last month ‘makes it easy for presidents to violate the law.’
“The president has brought up the article with key advisers, two Trump administration officials tell Axios.”
Many of the executive orders could even remain on the books and have controlling authority on various issues for years to come, even if Trump is defeated in November.
Speaking with Axios, Yoo recently admitted that he had indeed been meeting with White House officials about how the ruling would apply to executive orders Trump is already considering signing in what may be his final months in office.
It’s believed that the president plans to issue an executive order on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), including an “olive branch” to Hispanic voters just in time for November. However, that same order would likely include severe restrictions on future immigration.
Yoo explained that the recent DACA ruling from the Supreme Court “sets out a roadmap about how a president can use his prosecutorial discretion to under-enforce the law.”:
“Suppose President Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly,” Yoo writes in his National Review op-ed. “He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws, and that a new ‘Trump permit’ would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions.”
“Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency. And, moreover, even if courts declared the permit illegal, his successor would have to keep enforcing the program for another year or two.”
The president told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview that aired Sunday he was indeed looking at issuing an executive order on DACA and also hinted that he will be laying out a health care plan over the next two weeks, alleging that “the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do.”
Featured Image Via the BBC
