Trump has ideas for installing his controversial cabinet picks. He didn’t use them on Matt Gaetz

Trump has ideas for installing his controversial cabinet picks. He didn’t use them on Matt Gaetz

Donald Trump and his allies have signalled their willingness to fight to install the cast of controversial characters he’s picked for his cabinet, though it looks like Matt Gaetz is no longer part of the plan.

Trump’s polarizing pick for attorney general suddenly withdrew his name from consideration Thursday, amid evidence that the former Florida congressman lacked the support to get confirmed by the U.S. Senate which, normally, must approve any cabinet nominees. 

Trump reportedly told Gaetz, according to the Bulwark news outlet, that he didn’t “have the votes” and that the senators who’d balked at his nomination “aren’t moving.”

The news came as a shock, atop the initial shock of Gaetz’s nomination, because Trump — and his myriad spokespeople, advisers and allies — had repeatedly voiced a willingness to fight, fight, fight.

In fact, they’d discussed some novel paths for working around the Senate and bypassing the normal confirmation process.

Trump has himself publicly raised one possibility — recess appointments, which in essence means plowing ahead while the Senate is on break.

Trump aide Stephen Miller confirmed to Fox News this week that recess appointments are being considered, adding the U.S. president-elect will “use all lawful, constitutional means” to fulfil his mandate.

But that Plan B comes with caveats and complications. It could also lead to a constitutional conflict if it fails.

If the Senate doesn’t vote for a recess but the House does, some Trump allies are also talking about a Plan C: forcing Congress into a recess, a gambit critics call potentially unconstitutional, depending on how it’s done.

And if all that fails there’s a possible Plan D — a 1998 law that allows temporary appointments, although this too comes with conditions. A key condition is that the nominee can’t be official, meaning, in an ironic twist, that Gaetz could now potentially qualify for an interim post.

Gaetz was picked for attorney general while being investigated in Congress for alleged sex with a minor, payments for sex, illegal drug use and accepting improper gifts.

The fate of the other unconventional picks remains unclear. There could be months of drama ahead.

The choice for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, a veteran and Fox News host who opposes women in combat, dislikes the Geneva Conventions against torture, and once paid to settle a rape claim he calls untrue.

A number of Republicans have also expressed doubts about two ex-Democrats Trump wants to appoint: a critic of U.S. intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to lead U.S. intelligence; and a vaccine-, pharma- and food-industry critic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to lead the health bureaucracy.

“My expectation is that most of these nominees get through,” said David Lewis, an expert on presidential appointments at Vanderbilt University. 

He correctly predicted, before Gaetz backed out, that one or two might run into serious trouble, then either withdraw or get stuck in limbo.

The fundamental reality, he says, is that Republican senators face competing incentives.

There’s the institutional pressure to preserve the power of the Senate, but their own political careers may rest with backing Trump. Fighting him has been a career-ending move for several Republicans.

“They are cross-pressured,” Lewis said.

Splitting the difference

These competing demands were evident in the vacillating public comments from several Republicans about Gaetz and the other nominees.

Like Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who had made clear his disdain for Gaetz on a personal level, but was hedging on whether he’d vote to confirm him. Maybe, maybe not.

Republicans are also offering mixed messages on whether they agree with the Plan B of recess appointments. Some like Sen. Rick Scott of Florida appear to wholeheartedly endorse it.

Others disagree. 

Sen. Thom Tillis says recess appointments are fine for low-level officials. They’ve happened hundreds of times over the generations. But they’re inappropriate for senior cabinet roles, he says.

“That should be absolutely off the table,” the North Carolina senator told reporters Wednesday. “These positions are too important and carry too much weight internationally.”

There are restrictions on recess appointments. The Supreme Court has said Congress must be on break for a minimum of 10 days, which rarely happens without a pro forma meeting interrupting the break.

The top Republican in the Senate, John Thune, sounded skeptical in an interview with local media in his home state of South Dakota.

Without ruling out the idea, he said going on recess requires an adjournment motion in both chambers, which could be amended and dragged out ad nauseam by Democrats.

That has Trump allies talking about Plan C: forcing Congress to shut down. The Constitution allows the president to do this when the chambers disagree on adjournment, a remnant of the prorogation power in the British system.

“It’s an awful and anti-constitutional idea,” according to Ed Whelan, a legal analyst who writes for the conservative but Trump-skeptical National Review.

He also called it an abuse of the rules. 

But that plan would fall apart if both chambers of Congress oppose a recess, and a few Republicans are balking. The Bulwark reports that Trump is souring on the option. 

Then, as a final backup, there’s the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act. A lawyer who tried helping Trump overturn the 2020 election says the president can use that.

Jeff Clark, who served in Trump’s Justice Department, described this option in the podcast hosted by his ally Steve Bannon.

A candidate could be installed on a temporary basis for 300 days, provided they were not formally nominated after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump has “tools in his quiver,” said Clark, who has been fighting disbarment for actions he took as Trump’s acting assistant attorney general in 2020.

All these options have pros and cons. But as for the president shutting down the Senate?

“Then the wheels are coming off the bus,” Sarah Binder, an expert on presidential-congressional relations at the Brookings Institution, told a liberal podcast hosted by The New Republic.

“We’re sort of [on] the uncharted path here.”

She said the key point is Republican lawmakers have power here — but only if they choose to use it.

They could, for instance, always re-gavel the Senate back into session, and reset the recess clock at zero days, thwarting Trump’s plan.

It’s a big “if.”

“The No. 1 learning from the first Trump four years: The rules on the parchment can’t defend themselves. Rules can’t protect themselves,” she said. “Lawmakers have to leap into action and make a choice…. Certainly standing up to Trump seems a challenge.”

In the case of Gaetz, it appears none of these of these novel theories are being tested. At least not yet. We’ll see what Trump has planned for the rest.  

Published at Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:11:21 +0000

Former Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro accused of plotting to overturn 2022 election

Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro plotted a coup to overturn that country’s 2022 election along with dozens of ex-ministers and senior aides, federal police said in a formal accusation filed on Thursday with the Supreme Court.

The final police report caps a nearly two-year investigation into Bolsonaro’s role in the election-denying movement that culminated in riots by his supporters that swept Brasilia, the capital, in January 2023, just a week after his rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office.

Many protesters at the time said they wanted to create chaos to justify a military coup, which they considered imminent. Earlier this week, police arrested five alleged conspirators suspected of planning to assassinate Lula before he took office.

Investigators found evidence Bolsonaro knew of that alleged plan, according to police sources familiar with the probe.

Bolsonaro said on social media that investigators and the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case had been “creative” and done “everything the law does not say,” adding that he would have to look more at the formal police accusation. His lawyer told Reuters he would wait to see the report before commenting.

The formal police accusations against Bolsonaro are a fresh blow to his plan to run for president in 2026. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent victory had buoyed Bolsonaro allies trying to overturn a court decision that has blocked him from public office for attacking the legitimacy of the 2022 vote.

Decision on possible charges to come

The Supreme Court said it expects to send the police report — the full details of which remain confidential — next week to the country’s prosecutor general, who will decide whether to press charges against Bolsonaro and 36 others accused of criminal conspiracy to violently overthrow democracy.

Federal police said they had presented evidence based on search warrants, wiretaps, financial records and plea bargain testimony.

They said conspirators divided their efforts between spreading disinformation about the election, inciting the armed forces to join a coup, and operational support for “coup-mongering actions,” along with legal support and intelligence.

Among the accused are two of Bolsonaro’s former defence ministers, including his 2022 running mate, retired general Walter Braga Netto; his former national security adviser, retired general Augusto Heleno; former navy commander Almir Garnier Santos; and former justice minister Anderson Torres.

Lawmaker Alexandre Ramagem, who ran the Brazilian spy agency ABIN, and the head of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, were also among the accused named in a federal police statement.

Lawyers for Heleno and aides for Ramagem declined to comment.

The legal defences from Braga Netto and Torres said they would wait to officially get the police report before commenting.

Representatives for Garnier Santos, Brazil’s Defence Ministry, and navy did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The country’s army said it does not comment on ongoing processes from other bodies.

Representatives for Costa Neto also did not respond to calls for comment. But Rogerio Marinho, general-secretary of the Liberal Party, said in a statement that the police move over Costa Neto and others represents an “incessant political persecution” against the political wing they represent.

5 arrests in plot targeting Luna

Police on Tuesday arrested five people suspected of involvement in the assassination plot targeting Lula, then president-elect, and his running mate Geraldo Alckmin, days before they took office.

Lula, speaking at the presidential palace on Thursday, said he was lucky to be alive. “The attempt to poison me and Alckmin didn’t work and here we are,” he said.

Tuesday’s arrests included a deputy minister in Bolsonaro’s cabinet who had in his possession a document outlining the plan that had been printed at the presidential palace.

A police source said investigators confirmed Bolsonaro was at the presidential palace when the document was printed, and they had found evidence on cellphones of conversations between aides suggesting the former president was aware of the plot.

Bolsonaro never recognized his October 2022 electoral defeat and he left Brazil for Florida days before Lula’s inauguration.

He eventually returned to Brazil and surrendered his passport to police investigating his role in the January 2023 capital riots, when supporters stormed and vandalized the Supreme Court, Congress and the executive presidential palace.

When ordering the seizure of Bolsonaro’s passport, a judge cited evidence that Bolsonaro in November 2022 had seen and modified a draft decree to overturn electoral results and lock up Supreme Court judges and the Senate leader.

After tweaking the decree, Bolsonaro summoned military commanders and pressured them to support a coup, according to the police account, based on phone records and plea bargain testimony from the ex-president’s former aide-de-camp.

Former army and air force commanders also told investigators that Bolsonaro was involved in plans to overthrow democracy, according to testimony released by the Supreme Court in March.

Federal police finished two separate criminal probes of Bolsonaro and his associates earlier this year formally accusing them of tampering with COVID-19 vaccination cards while in office and of embezzling jewelry gifted by the Saudi government.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

A person close to Brazil’s prosecutor general, Paulo Gonet, said he is likely to consider the result of all three probes targeting the former president before making a decision on presenting charges, without any clear deadline.

Even as his legal woes have mounted, Bolsonaro remains the central figure of a right-wing movement driving Brazilian politics for the past six years. His party is the largest in the lower house of Congress and made strides in municipal elections last month.

Brazilian court cases can take years to reach final judgment and even then they are subject to appeals and reversals.

Lula was convicted of taking bribes and spent over a year and a half in jail before the Supreme Court threw out the case in 2021, allowing him to run for his third, non-consecutive presidential term in 2022.

Published at Fri, 22 Nov 2024 02:29:06 +0000