Never heard of these. Secret presidential powers. PEADS. Presidential Emergency Action Documents. ___________________ Rewriting the limits of presidential powers The power of the president is enormous – and this president is not bashful in describing powers that go well beyond simple declarations. In April, when discussing guidelines to be issued to governors about reopening states during the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump said, "When somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be – it's total." There are, it's true, some restraints on most presidential authority, but those might not apply to all the president's powers. As Mr. Trump stated in March, "I have the right to do a lot of things that people don't even know about." We can't know for sure, but what the president appears to have been referring to are his presidential emergency action documents, often referred to as PEADs. "Even though I've had security clearances for the better part of 50 years and been in and out of national security matters during that half-century, I had never heard of these 'secret powers,'" said former Senator Gary Hart. "Sunday Morning" special contributor Ted Koppel asked, "Do you know what they are, now that you've heard of them?" "Only vaguely, due to research done at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School," Hart said. "What these secret powers are, apparently, based on the research, is suspension of the Constitution, basically. And that's what's worrying, particularly on the eve of a national election." The Brennan Center research that Senator Hart referred to has been spearheaded by Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of its national security program, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. "These are essentially presidential orders that are drafted in anticipation of a range of hypothetical, worst-case scenarios," Goitein said. The alarming scope of the president's emergency powers ("The Atlantic) Koppel asked, "Several times during his administration, President Trump has made allusions to secret powers that he has that we don't know about. Is he making that up?" "Well, not exactly," Goitein replied. "And what's alarming about that is that no one really knows what the limits of those claimed authorities might be, because they are often developed and kept in secret." Goitein says what little we do know about PEADs comes from references to them in other documents, some of which are now declassified. "They originated in the Eisenhower administration as part of an effort to try to plan for a potential Soviet nuclear attack," Goitein said. "But since then, they've expanded to address other types of emergencies as well. No presidential emergency action document has even been released, or even leaked. Not even Congress has access to them, which is really pretty extraordinary when you consider that even the most highly-classified covert military and intelligence operations have to be reported to at least eight Members of Congress, the 'Gang of Eight.'" "You're saying they are not consulting with Congress?" Koppel asked. "Exactly," said Goitein. "Congress is not aware of these documents, and from public sources we know that at least in the past these documents have purported to do things that are not permitted by the Constitution – things like martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus and the roundup and detention of people not suspected of any crime."
They were never worried during Obama, nor during Bush. These powers have existed for a long time and are reinforced and "improved" by every new sitting president. Nothing to see here but election season fearmongering. FEMA has been able to round up people "suspected" of a crime for a very long time in the event of a national emergency. Presidential emergency powers have for a long time allowed suspending the constitution. This would be a better video if they didn't make it sound like Trump has powers Obama didn't. Executive order 10990, 10995, 10997, 11921, REX-84, etc.