However this part of the EO is pretty concerning
> 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch'
and later
> 'No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law'
This can potentially enable an end run around congress and the courts in that the President can easily choose to interpret laws in a manner inconsistent with the intent of congress and courts. Now, we can argue the point and say that presidents have already done so in the past and that congress/courts should have been more specific. However it quickly gets into the issue of the impossibility of congress or the courts anticipating and specifying every detail to avoid a 'hostile' interpretation.
This part of the EO says the president's opinion is the law as far as the executive branch is concerned. Given that the executive branch implements the law, this would imply that the president's interpretation is all that matters. The other two branches have no real role left to play. Given the supreme court's ruling on presidential immunity, this is a dangerous level of power concentration.
Even if you support the current president's goals and objectives, setting up the president as the sole power center is an inherently unstable system. Nothing prevents the next president from having a radically different opinion. There is a very good reason why the founding fathers built in an elaborate system of checks and balances.
It goes against the foundation of not only US law, but couple of hundred years of international democratic tradition in which allegiance is not to a person, but to the nation itself.
US civil servants and military alike swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution not the president or their commander. Illegal orders are not only expected, but required to be disobeyed.
This EO eliminates the concept of an illegal order since the law would be whatever the executive interprets it to be.
There are many things that I thought would not survive the scrutiny of good people within the system of checks and balances.
But here were are. It seems that "good people within the system of checks and balances" were the only obstacle to absolute power.
The United States had a spoils system of government administration until at least the late 1800s. The spoils system was still prevalent in many state and city governments until the mid 1900s.
This didn't mean officials were permitted to violate the law, but self-dealing and bald partisanship in administration was rampant, and of course violations of the law often went unpunished as administration officials had (and have) discretion to prosecute.
How do you come to that to conclusion, especially in the context of the EO?
This EO doesn't change the Constitution's requirement that the President "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".
I'm not a lawyer but I would interpret this EO to say "it is the job of the President to execute the laws passed by Congress" and "the President may employ subordinates in that execution", however "these subordinates must still execute based on the President's interpretation, not their own".
The EO has a long section on "independent agencies which operate without Presidential supervision". This is what the EO clarifies.
> This EO eliminates the concept of an illegal order since the law would be whatever the executive interprets it to be.
This isn't true at all. This EO doesn't change the fact that President is held accountable by the judicial branch for following the law.
Isn't this exactly how it works? They interpret it and that stands unless challenged in court.
Yes. It does.
But there is an older Big Man tradition where loyalty to the nation is indistinguishable from loyalty to the person, the Big Man).
I naively thought that that was a stage that democracies passed through (we see it a lot in the South Pacific - the Big Man.
So sad. So terribly sad. We all like to tease Americans for being this and that, but now it feels like punching down.
Good luck to you all - Dog bless.