DOGE Is 100% Legal… 7 May 2025

	   **Sorry, Liberals. DOGE Is 100% Legal. Here’s Why.
        Victor Davis Hanson | February 16, 2025

     Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I
want to revisit the hysteria, controversy—whatever term we use—
about Elon Musk and his role in the Department of Government
Efficiency—or DOGE—using that term for the executive officer of
Renaissance Florence. The Italian word “doge” is a meme, so to
speak.
     There’s a lot of controversy about Elon Musk, and let’s just
dispel some of it right at the start. He is not a freelancer. He
was appointed a government official. Donald Trump, by an executive
order, created the Department of Government Efficiency, and he made
Elon Musk the head of it, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, who now has
resigned.
     Elon Musk has statutory authority. This Department of Govern-
ment Efficiency is not a Cabinet agency. He does not have to be
approved by Congress. And it only is going to last until July 4,
2026. It’s not a permanent agency, but he has the same power, or
lack of such, as the national security adviser, who does not have
to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
     He’s more legitimate—or he has more statutory legitimacy—than
earlier presidential advisers, like Harry Hopkins, who moved into
the White House under the FDR administration, or Bernard Baruch,
who basically ran two world wars, in terms of domestic production,
under Woodrow Wilson and FDR. So, let’s just dispel the idea that
he’s doing anything unusual.
     As far as the executive orders that created the DOGE program
and eliminated the U.S. Agency for International Development—that
was perfectly legal in itself. USAID was created by John F. Kennedy
in 1961 by an executive order. There was a statutory direction for
the president to disperse foreign aid into a comprehensive body,
but it didn’t say USAID—he could do whatever he wanted.
     And so, Donald Trump has decided to end autonomous USAID and
fold it into the State Department for disaster relief or poverty
relief or famine relief.
     But let’s get straight what Elon Musk is trying to do. He’s
going through all of these agencies and finding waste and fraud.
And he has executive authority to do so. The Democrats are suing
on the principle that they have approved funds for some of these
agencies and Donald Trump is not spending them. And they are also
arguing that Elon must exist by an executive order and not a
congressional statute.
     And this is very ironic, to tell you the truth. If you look
back at executive orders, the number of which have been issued by
Democratic and Republican presidencies, you see two general terms:
The two Bushes and Donald Trump are not that much different than
the 16 years of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
     Where you see the big divide in the number of executive orders
is a break between FDR and Harry Truman, and to a lesser extent,
Herbert Hoover and Coolidge, and the present. And believe me,
during the Roosevelt years and Truman years, that was an all-time
record of executive orders, and that got Roosevelt in trouble, of
course, with the Supreme Court.
     As far as impounding funds, Joe Biden set the precedent. You
all saw him on tape when he said, “SOB—the son of a—I went in, over
there, to Ukraine and I said, ‘You’re not getting this billion
dollars until you do this.’” Well, that money had been approved by
Congress.
     And when he became president, there was a statute that said,
“Here’s the money to build the wall.”
     And Joe Biden canceled the wall. That was illegal. But he came
up with all these—“Oh, we have to do environmental studies, or on
endangered species.” But he didn’t spend the money. All Donald
Trump is doing is saying, “I don’t believe the Impoundment Control
Act is legal. We’ll see what the Supreme Court says—but I’m just
following the precedent that Joe Biden did.” But now the shoe’s on
the other foot.
     And so, again, there is a statutory authority for Elon Musk to
do what he does. He has the executive order justifying his agency,
his 20-some employees. And more importantly—there’s another thing no
one talks about—Elon Musk is a controversial figure and everybody
is attacking him. And whom are they not attacking? Donald Trump.
     So, while the media is trying to make a split—Time magazine
had a cover of Elon Musk behind the presidential desk in the Oval
Office, Donald Trump didn’t get angry about that. He said, “I didn’t
even know Time magazine was still in existence.” Why? Because Elon
Musk, in addition to all of these executive duties he’s doing to
cut back wasteful spending, he is redirecting animus away from the
president to him.**

     The United States needs, smart, intelligent, and educated
People in Washington that can direct this country in a positive
direction without robbing us blind.
     God can direct us but we have to get rid of the evil and the
corruption to get back on our feet.

  Conservatively,
  John