A friend of mine, a life long conservative, who voted for Trump expressed that DOGE presents a constitutional crisis. What they argued is this.
We have an unelected private citizen who is not an appointee to any valid governmental agency or federal executive department (creating doge a federal executive department would require an act of congress) gaining access to sensitive government data, including the private information of federal employees and American citizens without proper authorization or credentialing. There is no congressional oversight of his appointment because doge is not an actual thing.
The unconstitutional part is treating doge and its "employees" as a federal executive agency and giving it all of the access to the multiple federal departments without the oversight of congress. This effectively thumbs its nose at the balance of powers and sets a dangerous precedent. It is incumbent upon the coequal branches of government to check the executive branch at this point which has asserted power outside of its constitutional authority by creating an agency that functions and a federal agency without having been properly created, approved, and vetted by the congress.
This would be like Obama deciding that Van Jones is the best guy to go combing through all of the government data and information with zero oversight or advice and consent from congress. We have three co-equal branches of government to prevent such an abuse, and at no point do we have the luxury of concluding that the ends justify the means.
while agree with the purpose of DOGE in principle, I think the constitutional validity is questionable and I can see this being problematic in the future. But I also don’t think Congress will ever approve a deep dive into bureaucratic waste because Congress has its hands in the cookie jar, so anyone approved to look is going to be someone on a tight leash in Congress’ hands
We have an unelected private citizen who is not an appointee to any valid governmental agency or federal executive department (creating doge a federal executive department would require an act of congress) gaining access to sensitive government data, including the private information of federal employees and American citizens without proper authorization or credentialing. There is no congressional oversight of his appointment because doge is not an actual thing.
The unconstitutional part is treating doge and its "employees" as a federal executive agency and giving it all of the access to the multiple federal departments without the oversight of congress. This effectively thumbs its nose at the balance of powers and sets a dangerous precedent. It is incumbent upon the coequal branches of government to check the executive branch at this point which has asserted power outside of its constitutional authority by creating an agency that functions and a federal agency without having been properly created, approved, and vetted by the congress.
This would be like Obama deciding that Van Jones is the best guy to go combing through all of the government data and information with zero oversight or advice and consent from congress. We have three co-equal branches of government to prevent such an abuse, and at no point do we have the luxury of concluding that the ends justify the means.
while agree with the purpose of DOGE in principle, I think the constitutional validity is questionable and I can see this being problematic in the future. But I also don’t think Congress will ever approve a deep dive into bureaucratic waste because Congress has its hands in the cookie jar, so anyone approved to look is going to be someone on a tight leash in Congress’ hands
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