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Notes -
"I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally."
So this feels like a bit of an escalation to me. My attempt at an analysis, from someone who is not American:
Overall, I feel like this is kind of a misplay from Trump - I think that it guarantees that the next Democrat administration will do the same to his executive orders and pardons. I worry that this will lead to each administration basically cancelling everything that the previous one did, which I worry will lead to more power being entrenched in the permanent bureaucracy (as the administration's actions will all be seen to be impermanent, so the bureaucracy will just ignore orders they don't like). Some will argue that is the current state of affairs, and I don't necessarily disagree; the worry is that it would prevent another Trump-like figure from actually making changes.
I also think that this is one of those actions that does lend a bit of credence to the accusations that Trump is acting like a fascist. To be absolutely clear: I think there is no actual informational value in almost all accusations against Trump of any sort; I think that almost everyone who accuses him of anything has started from the position of "Trump bad" and used that to justify any and all accusations against him. That being said - this feels like the sort of action that will kick off another escalation cycle. One thing that I've noticed about a lot of US political escalations is that they often start with an action that is fully legal, but against form; the other party then does something that is mostly-legal, which the first party then uses to claim that the first party has completely abandoned the rule of law. I am right-wing biased (I lean libertarian, but that's a "more libertarian than we are now", as opposed to an "absolute libertarian") - but even with that, I can't think of an equivalent on the left to this.
So, for the American commentators - should I be concerned about this? Is this just Trump saying shit, is there a left wing equivalent I missed, is there some form of precedent that excuses it? Did I miss something major in my interpretation of it? Is this just not a big deal at all?
Why is there no paper trail involved, no chain of custody, and no witnesses? Biden himself shouldn't really be necessary for this exercise, any more than a pardon by HW Bush is no longer valid. People were in the room when he signed the pardon or ordered the pardon signed, there's a diary entry in the official records showing where Biden was at the time and who was with him, there are secret service agents and aides who were there. There's a whole lot of people who could prove or disprove this theory even if Joe Biden is dead. The fact that none of them are willing to go under oath on the topic would tend to indicate that there's a big mess being swept under the rug, because this isn't a hard fix.
The impact going forward would tend to be strict chain of custody and multiple witnesses attesting to the signatures.
I don't really understand why the Autopen is remotely accepted in this case. In much the same way that I think fillibusters should require actually talking continuously for as long as they want to hold the Senate up.
I guess I'm modestly sympathetic here to the idea that the Senate gets to make it's own rules, and that time on the Senate floor at least should be precious. I can at least understand the chamber deciding on the current rules, under which I believe the presiding party could demand a talking filibuster, or choose to pivot to other business.
I suppose I could also be sympathetic to the Executive setting it's own clear rules (by Executive Order, I suppose) for official decrees, but in this case it seems the process isn't really that clear, as are the limits on delegating specific powers.
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