UPDATE: Supreme Court Stays District Court Order That U.S. Pay $2 Billion To Foreign Aid Contractors By Midnight
Gov’t to SCOTUS: “The government cannot function—and the President cannot discharge his Article II responsibilities over foreign affairs—if a district court can appoint itself the claims-processor for the federal government and second-guess the Executive Branch’s determinations on pain of contempt proceedings.”
In our Morning Insurrection newsletter (subscribe here), I commented this morning:
“I was reading an excellent article at JNS about how Judges in Israel have taken almost complete control of political and policy decision making through vague concepts as to what is in the public interest. Unfortunately, it reminded me of what is happening in many U.S. District Courts where vague and broad concepts under the Administrative Procedures Act have been used in an attempt to substitute the political and policy judgments of judges for those of the executive branch. In Israel and here, the result of judicial usurpation of political and policy decisions will result in a collapse of faith in the judiciary.”
A well-organized and financed effort that was planned for several months to paralyze the executive branch through lawfare has unfolded in several dozen lawsuits since the Inauguration. Unfortnately, some — but not all — district court judges have overstepped their constitutional boundaries to micromanage and second-guess policy and political decisions. There is no better example than AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition v. U.S. Dept. of State, where they obtained a crazy (I don’t use that term lightly) order that DOS pay $2 billion in invoices by midnight tonight.
The Motion for Emergency Stay detailed how crazy (but I repeat myself) this Order was:
In this action under the Administrative Procedure Act, the district court has ordered the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion in taxpayer dollars within 36 hours, without regard to payment-integrity systems that would ensure that the monies claimed are properly owed, without regard to the federal government’s meritorious arguments to the contrary, and without so much as addressing the government’s sovereign-immunity defense. A stay pending appeal, and an immediate administrative stay, are necessary to prevent grave and irreparable harm to the government.
To be very clear: the government is committed to paying for work that was properly completed, so long as the claims are legitimate. What the government cannot do is pay arbitrarily determined expenses on a timeline of the district court’s choosing, so that a district court creates a payment plan at odds with the President’s obligations under Article II and bedrock principles of federal sovereign immunity. And regardless whether this Court stays the district court’s order, agency leadership has determined that the ordered payments “cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the” district court. AIDS Vaccine Dkt. No. 37-1, at 2. In light of these exigencies, we request an administrative stay by February 26, 2025, at 1:00 PM. If no administrative stay is granted, we waive our reply and request a ruling on the stay motion by 4:00 PM.
Although this litigation began as a (meritless) challenge under the APA to a pause in certain federal contracts and grants, it has morphed in the last 24 hours into a sweeping effort to require massive outlays of funds under thousands of funding instruments, including many that do not involve any of the plaintiffs and are not even in the record. There are statutory schemes, administrative remedies, and an entire Article I court dedicated to resolving disputes over contractual payments for already-performed work, which precludes review under the APA. But the district court brushed aside those arguments, even though they were raised by the government in its opposition to a preliminary injunction filed last week and renewed at today’s hearing, on the ground that the government had not adequately preserved the arguments, in writing, between the filing of a motion Monday night and an emergency hearing convened at 11:00 Tuesday morning. The original order in this case, for that matter, was also issued before the overnment had ny opportunity to respond in writing to plaintiffs’ deeply flawed arguments.
The district court’s order is incredibly intrusive and profoundly erroneous. It appears to contemplate the immediately outlay of nearly $2 billion. The government has no practical mechanism to recover wrongfully disbursed funds that go out the door to entities that have complained that they are near insolvency. And the district court’s broad exercise of jurisdiction, resolving monetary claims beyond its proper authority and addressing the hypothetical claims of parties not before the court, was without legal basis. The district court’s order should be stayed pending appeal.1 In addition, the order should be immediately administratively stayed
When most of the day had passed without the appeals court ruling, the Trump administration filed an emergency application, repeating many of the same arguments, with the Supreme Court.
The government cannot function—and the President cannot discharge his Article II responsibilities over foreign affairs—if a district court can appoint itself the claims-processor for the federal government and second-guess the Executive Branch’s determinations on pain of contempt proceedings.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals finally ruled tonight, and it dismissed the emergency application and the appeal as procedurally improper, claiming the government should have appealed the earlier TRO, not the enforcement of the TRO. Of course, in the unrelated Dellinger case that also is at SCOTUS, the appeals court ruled the government could not appeal the TRO.
BREAKING: The federal appeals court in DC wil NOT stop a judge's order requiring the State Department and USAID to pay out $2 billion in invoices to aid groups by midnight tonight.https://t.co/cptvt2g4Gu
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 27, 2025
The court system is not handling the lawfare well at all (understatement). The Supreme Court needs to intervene here and in other cases to save the judiciary from itself.
UPDATE 10 P.M.
Chief Justice Roberts, the Justice assigned to cover the DC Circuit, has issued a stay:
UPON CONSIDERATION of the application of counsel for the applicants, IT IS ORDERED that the February 25, 2025 orders of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case Nos. 1:25-cv-00400 and 1:25-cv-00402, are hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court. It is further ordered that any response to the application be filed on or before Friday, February 28, 2025, by 12 p.m. (EST).
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Comments
Our Judicial Branch continues to overstep and lose credibility with every shopped Judge. When will SCOTUS contain the damage?
I’ll note that every decision thus far that I’ve read about has something in common, that being the judge is a Biden appointee. Do you suppose that has anything to do with it?
Not all of them. Some were Obama judges. we are rapidly reaching the point where Trump will say. That’s a nice ruling. Now try and enforce it.
We may also be reaching another point. A judge being arrested and criminally charged. Perhaps Sedition? Possibly even treason. (Ordering the government to send money to non-American groups outside of the United States, some of which have been found to be aiding terrorists hostile to the United States)
No. Well, yes to the “Gosh there sure seem to be a bunch of Biden and Obama judges making these biased decisions,” but no to the idea that Trump is just going to outright throw a KMA at these judicial tyrants and proceed. Trump has *always* fought to stay within the letter of the law, and despite the anguished cries of leftists, he either goes through decisions like this with appeals, or around with unexpected actions. So when a judge decrees that all contracts under USAID are to be reviewed in a few days and any that are not finished with the review shall be paid (considered an impossible task due to sheer numbers), he came back at the deadline with a “We reviewed them all as requested and cancelled them, so there are none still covered by your stay. Thanks, judge.”
No, that is not possible. First of all, that is not treason. Even if you were to suppose that the judge doesn’t really believe that’s the law, and is deliberately misinterpreting it in order to sabotage the president, that is not treason, because it doesn’t involve adherence to the enemy. Also because Hamas is not an enemy of the USA (though Iran probably is). And it certainly isn’t sedition.
But primarily it’s impossible because the order would be illegal and whomever he would send to arrest the judge would have a duty to refuse the order. If that person didn’t refuse, his superiors, colleagues, or inferiors would arrest him.
And such a move on Trump’s part would vindicate the most paranoid and ridiculous Democrat fears, and it would be time for the second amendment. The Democrats are wrong, because Trump won’t do that. If he did then they’d be right.
Why do you think they were appointed?
It is important that these judges pay a personal price for their actions.
In corporate disputes, where a big company has staggering advantages over small companies, I made the fight much more equal by attacking top management. Killing their bonuses, putting their jobs at risk, sometimes even getting them fired, was a very effective equalizer..
The same is true for these judges, take their scalps and dance on their misery.
Two biden and one obama judge
The obama appointee Pillard was widely recognized as far left when she was nominated. I am not familiar with the two biden appointees.
It was also biden and obama appointees in the CA1 case where they ruled parents have no right to be informed of a schools participation in transgender conversion.
District Courts are referred to in Article III as “Inferior tribunals”. The terminology is not by accident.
Sadly for the Courts,Chief Justice John Roberts abhors President Trump.. Roberts who handles appeals for the DC Circuit will not intervene. He will concoct some procedural theory and not rule on the merits.
When these inferior tribunals lose respect, the damage will in no small measure be due to John Roberts ineffectiveness as a leader.
Wow. 32 minutes to be proven wrong. Far from a record, but impressive.
I don’t think “superior” and “inferior” had the same connotation in the 18th century as they do now. I think they just meant “higher” and “lower”. So as an “inferior officer” doesn’t mean one of lower quality, it just means one that doesn’t need senate confirmation.
In the case of “inferior court” the constitution actually defines the term before using it. The first time it refers to these courts it calls them “tribunals inferior to the supreme court”. So their “inferiority” is not an inherent trait, it’s a relative positional term. Something that is inferior to something else may still be superior to a third thing. In the case of courts, the circuit courts are inferior to the supreme court but superior to district courts.
Apparently we have two people who object to any definition of English language words other than the definition they favor. Many words have multiple meanings listed in various dictionaries and we choose the one which fits the context, not necessarily our preference. Or is it a knee jerk reaction to Milhouse?
This time Millhouse is correct. Proper use of the english tingue supports his take on the matter.
I have aways understood the terms inferior and superior to indicate relative position on the “totem pole’ of the court system here in the US, not as a declaration of their quality or value.
My six years of latin language study confirm this assessment. These two words are directly extracted from the latin language.
From the Oxford Latin Dictionary: inferior ~ior -ius, compar. a. [INFERVS + -IOR]
5 (of persons or things) Of lower quality, less good, strong, able, etc. b (w. abl.. or in+ abl.) inferior, worse (in some given respect). c proved inferior, worsted. d not good enough, inadequate.
There’s some parallels to the Executive branch here, in that if a President could clone themselves a few thousand times, each clone could run a section of the Executive branch exactly as directed by the Executive. If the Supreme Court were made up of god-like creatures of infinite speed, they could rule over every Federal case from criminal to civil. But they’re not, so they have ‘mini-Me’ courts with less (never greater) power to conduct business in the way the SC should behave, and occasionally have one of these lower/inferior/subordinate court cases go up the chain to for the SC to chastise for not following their direction. The exact term is not important. The fact they should be ruling the same way as the SC is. (and this judge is not)
“…each clone could run a section of the Executive branch exactly as directed by the Executive.”
They aren’t clones, but the department secretaries are the POTUS’ avatars. They’re supposed to act as conduits for the POTUS’ will and act in his stead. But the POTUS is the executive branch. He just has his avatars running the various departments for him. He could withdraw that authority at any time, and take direct control of any executive function himself.
This is why some of these court orders are so offensive. They are blocking people who are acting not just under the authority of POTUS but with the authority of the POTUS from conducting the POTUS’ business of running the executive branch. This is a violation of the separation of powers. Appeals to the damage and injury his acts cause is a political consideration, not a legal consideration, because he is unquestionably authorized to orchestrate the affairs of the executive branch according to his own ideas and in pursuit of his own objectives. All presidents are elected to exercise their judgement in doing exactly these things.
Except that there are statutes that limit the president’s powers, e.g. those protecting some executive employees from being fired for no cause. The supreme court has held that some of these laws are invalid, but many are valid and the president must obey them. It depends what kind of employee is involved.
Remember that Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing a cabinet secretary, contrary to a law that forbade him from doing so. Under current supreme court jurisdiction that law was invalid, and Johnson had every right to fire him.
Too late. Credibility is already at zero.
So, what if the Executive branch refuses to comply?
Honestly, I think this is the only option. The judiciary is basically trampling all over the Constitution and the Supreme Court hasn’t bothered to step in at all.
The only solution here is to create a constitutional showdown by refusing the judicial orders.
I think you are correct. Forcing SCOTUS to step in will have to happen soon to resolve this lawfare and separation of powers.
I don’t think this is the best idea. If Roberts has proven anything over his term a Chief Justice is that when pushed he will either act as a petulant child or find a way to make the worst decision possible.
While @gremlin1974 is not wrong regarding Roberts’ past behavior, this is a very clear-cut issue. While the Executive Branch needs to pay for work performed or contracts completed, it does not need to pay for things that haven’t happened yet, regardless of the grant language, unless the expenditure is clearly defined in legislation. Usually, spending bills aren’t very clear which provide the executive considerably leeway.
I’d support that.
That has been my take from the beginning, dress up what amounts to a middle finger and pound sand response.
Well to paraphrase Stalin: “How many divisions does the judge have?” If the judge holds Trump in contempt, then what? Trump commands the DOj, the Secret Service, the federal marshals, the Army, etc. Will they all remain loyal to the elected head of the executive branch, or an unelected judge appointed by a cognitively impaired prior president? We don’t want to go there, so SCOTUS must intervene and settle the matter. To what extent can an unelected inferior court micro manage the chief executive? How would the inferior courts like it if the president told them who they can hire and fire as clerks? Or what cases they should or should not hear? Or who they can admit into chambers? This asymmetry must be resolved.
The District and Circuit courts are really building the case, pun intended, to have Congress dissolve them. The inferior Federal Courts either get reined in by SCOTUS or the Congress may be forced to do it for them. No impeachment required. Just an up/down vote to dissolve all Article III Courts inferior to SCOTUS. Then Congress can redraw the Circuit boundaries, maybe add a Circuit or compress the total and reauthorize the new inferior ART III Courts….. and since the newly authorized inferior CTs will have 100% Judicial vacancies… President Trump can nominate 100% of the Judges. Raw political power? Sure. Distasteful? Meh, no whining when there’s no other option and SCOTUS refuses to rein in the inferior Courts.
As interesting as that sounds, I don’t think it could be done with thin majorities and even at that, the slime in Congress would never grow the balls.
All over would take is a bare majority in HoR and 50/50 + VP in Senate but …yeah you’re correct they don’t have the stones for it at present. I envision this ‘nuke’ option as down the road after other measures failed.
Thankfully the Chief Justice has granted a stay for the moment. Hopefully a majority will make a clear ruling about both the District CT level issuing nationwide rulings and the clear ART II powers of the Executive, both are necessary to halt/mitigate the blatant lawfare of very questionable TRO/venue shopping.
It probably doesn’t work like that. Judges have lifetime tenure during good behavior, so they can only be removed by a finding of bad behavior. Abolishing their court doesn’t do that.
There was once such a theory as you suggest, supported by John Taylor of Caroline, on which the Democrat-Republicans relied when they abolished the circuit courts in 1802. But it was controversial at the time, and it was never relied on again. Ever since 1802, whenever a federal court has been abolished its judges have kept their tenure and been redistributed among the remaining courts.
I suppose what Congress could do (if it had the numbers for it) would be to abolish the existing courts, establish a new court with jurisdiction over not very much, and move all the judges there. Then it could reestablish the courts with empty benches, and the president could move those judges he liked to them, while leaving the ones he doesn’t like in the judicial “rubber room”.
Milhouse,
You seem to be arguing for ‘Schrodinger’s Judge’.
A person is appointed as a Judge to occupy a judicial position. Remove the judicial position and you remove the Judge. No other Circuits will exist to transfer them into. The former Judges will get a salary/pension but they are not authorized to make any rulings absent occupying a judicial position anymore than I am.
It would be a very ham fisted use of Congressional power but still a constitutional one. ART I says Congress can establish inferior Courts as they see fit. They can reorganize them. They can get rid of them entirely. It is an inherent power of Congress. The People can provide a check on Congress exercise of this power at the next election…..assuming the People disagree.
There you go, citing law and history again. Trump won the election and to too many that means we get to do whatever we want, no matter how illegal or dumb.
As some have noted elsewhere, the only constitutional crisis here is that the Dems lost the election.
Chief, I’m suggesting that a federal judge who has not been found, after a fair trial, to have misbehaved, is constitutionally entitled to be a judge for life, whether or not there’s a court for him to be a judge on. His status is his property and can’t be taken away. And as soon as a court exists for him to be on he has to be assigned to it.
Consider the case of supreme court justices. Suppose Congress decides we only need seven of them, so it abolishes two seats. The view since the beginning has been that it can abolish the seats but not the justices; it can only provide that the next two justices who die or retire will not be replaced. It has happened several times that Congress voted to reduce the Court’s size, but by the time the next judge died or retired a subsequent congress had reversed the decision, so the court’s actual size never went down. Even in 1802, when they took your view and fired all the circuit judges, they didn’t fire any supreme court justices, presumably because they didn’t think they could.
Milhouse,
We are not discussing SCOTUS. My proposal only applies to the inferior Courts. For some reason y’all keep injecting SCOTUS. I don’t believe my proposal would work with SCOTUS for just the reason you offer and b/c Congress does not have Constitutional authority to simply dissolve SCOTUS in the same way they have plenary power over the inferior Courts; ‘….may from time to time ordain and establish’.
Each Judge on an inferior Court is appointed and confirmed. Each Judge ‘shall hold their office during good behavior…’. The key is dissolution of the ‘Office’. No office, no Judge. Dissolve ALL inferior Courts simultaneously and we eliminate the issue. They would be entitled to retain a judicial pension and retain the courtesy mode of being formally addressed as ‘Judge’. He has zero ‘property interest’ in being able to exercise Judicial Authority for life but he absolutely does for compensation b/c the Constitution explicitly states that.
The historical practice is inapplicable b/c there won’t be any remaining Circuits for them to be transferred into. All of them would be dissolved simultaneously. There isn’t any law that can restrict the Congress from using a power granted by the Constitution nor can the Judiciary invent one, though some may try as y’all are here. It would be up to the voters to check Congress and vote them out if they disagree.
Let’s simplify this since y’all seem to miss the key point about the timing and very existence of inferior Art III Courts. All the Judges are playing a game of musical chairs and on the first round they all have a chair but suddenly all at once every chair is removed. Now none of them have a chair and they are all ‘out’.
Ham fisted? Sure. Raw power on display? Yes. Kinda unseemly? Sure. Kick up a shit storm? Absolutely. None of which would keep a united Congressional majority in the HoR and 50+ VP in the Senate from using their Constitutional power in this way. The check on EVERY Constitutional use of power by Congress, including this hypothetical one, is the voters in the next election. Frankly it’s all academic b/c.Congress doesn’t have the stones, at least yet, to do this. Someday maybe but not just yet. In any event Congress shouldn’t do it if they can manage to put together enough votes to impeach and then remove a few of the more wild eyed Judges…but if they can’t get 67 votes in the Senate b/c d/prog refuse along party lines …well they only need 50+ VP to do this.
The courts, especially DC federal courts, never stepped backed from the lawfare madness, and were never forced back by the S. Ct. They’ve just become more activist to the point where it seems they’ve finally provoked a real constitutional crisis. So gross and sickeningly irresponsible it is really hard to believe. And the Roberts’ court bears a lot of the blame.
Eaach of the first three Atricles of the Constition contain separate and distinct methods for removing members of the three branches of government. Although Article II impeachment has been used to remove Article III judges the standard is actually “good behavoir”.
The circumstances here are exceptional. An Article III judge is trying to run the Executive Btanch. A majority votre of both Houses deeming Judge Ali Amir is not following the law should be sufficient to remove this judge for not being on “good behavoir””
Amir is Canadian born of Egypitan descent. He was naturalized 10 years ago and his nomination to the bench was approved by 50-49 in November 2024. We cannot live under judical tyranny.
And they call other cultists. Do they EVER think about anything else?
I don’t see this ending well
Roberts is a coward
Seems Roberts is finally doing his job.
Don’t discount the possibility that Roberts will declare it a tax at the last moment and demand Trump cut a check.
This won’t end until Trump manufactures an existential threat, declares martial law and cleans house. I hope he does. You can’t preserve a republic that no longer exists.
He can’t declare martial law. Martial law can only exist in the United States in a district where the courts are unable to function, due to some disaster or upheaval. As soon as a court opens its doors, martial law in that district ends automatically.
He can do as Lincoln did, based on a rebellion. You were happy to defend Biden exceeding his authority while a feckless judiciary let matters drag on to the executive’s advantage. I am happy to see Trump do the same.
Lincoln was not able to impose martial law in districts where the courts were open. See Ex Parte Milligan and Duncan v. Kahanamoku
You could argue the courts are obviously no longer able to function when they come up with Constitution-defying rulings such as these. Maybe there’s something in the water. Look for a better definition of “function” and push it.
BTW, I would not advocate anything like “martial law.” The optics would be horrific if that happened.
No, you couldn’t argue that, at least not honestly. “Function” has its ordinary meaning, that they are able to open their doors and hear petitions and make rulings. Martial law can only exist where there is no court, because there’s been an earthquake, or because the judges are all dead, or there are raging battles in the streets and it’s impossible to open the courthouse, or something like that.
The Executive controls the DOJ and the Military, verses the Judiciary who have limited authority over a few thousand Federal Marshalls. So I imagine that if the Executive declares Martial Law they have the resources to enforce that.
And they would be criminals and dictators; by tearing up the constitution they would have lost all legitimacy, and the military would have a duty to refuse all orders and to depose them. It would be time for “second amendment solutions”.
You have absolutely no shame.
Why should he be ashamed of accurately describing the law? I would be ashamed to advocate using force in response to a court decision I disagree with, no matter how awful the decision. We have a saying ‘The cure is worse than the disease.’
Says the devil spawn from Hell, who has never told the truth in his life, and bases his position on every matter on whose ox is gored.
We will soon learn whether the Executive Branch is controlled by President Donald Trump or by Judge Ali Amir.
Amir was confirmed as District Court Judge in November 2024 after a 50-49 vote. Amir is Canadian born of Egyptian parents and has been a US Citizen for about 10 years.
Another D nomination that checked all the boxes. Including Canadian by birth, thro undergrad. Harvard “law” school and a couple of judicial clerkships (including one in CANADA). Ran a “justice” center that sued in federal courts. What better kind of super-judge; even the Wikipedia write-up demonstrates how pre-plotted litigation vs. the Trump/Vance administration can succeed when an awful excuse for a federal district court judge happens to impose personal dislike rather than the rule of law..
If there’s “bad behavior” by a judge, it’s the substitution of personal politics for the Constitution and the rule of law.
So we either have to slap down a few activist Federal Judges who have allowed themselves to be used for lawfare, or allow such activists to exercise unprecedented power over the majority. So either the SC takes the lead, or allows the Executive Branch to do so by defying these bad actors. It’s definitely a power play, and the fate of our Democracy hangs in the balance.
Can Trump/Republicans expand the District Courts? I seem to remember a recent idea of expanding the Supreme Court.
They could. There’s already a shortage of District Court judges. I can’t remember the actual number. But, I believe it’s significant. In the closing weeks of the Biden Administration, there was a rare bit of bipartisanship in a bill that would have added 66 new District Court judges. Biden vetoed that bill.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-66-new-federal-judgeships-vetoes/
The District Courts are obviously out of control. But, the Circuits Courts are almost as bad. This particular case and the parental/trans notification case out of the First Circuit yesterday underscore how much change is needed on those two circuits.
The First Circus may be expected to deliver truly egregious decisions for these four years. Only five judges in that court and, IIRC, four Obama appointed judges and one Quid Pro Joe appointee. No matter how the three judge panel is drawn, there’s no sense in asking for an en banc.
This is how close to a banana republic we have become.
Unfortunately several of the responses here would bring us even closer.
Next: let’s require all citizens to change underwear every hour & to wear their underwear on the outside so that we can check.
Under the surface of all this power wrangling I have ONE question:
¿cui bono?
This out of control, never mind out of his lane, judge smells to me like he has some hidden connexions to at least some of the money he is trying to coopt and manage.
Canadian born, mideast heritage, recent US citizen, WHERE is his true loyalty? Someone needs to examine his affiliations……
You can’t vote your way out of this. The administrative state is in control and the courts are part of it.
What? When I made this point a few days ago on this very forum, I was assured by some drive-by rando that it was just “snark.”.
A few days ago, I wrote the following here:
“Commenters here correctly stated that nothing could be done about Biden’s pardons because as POTUS he had complete and unreviewable authority to make them. Like the power to pardon, the POTUS’ authority over the executive branch is shared with no other branch, department, agency, or office. Like the pardon, there is no designated oversight authority. Like the pardon, a POTUS’ executive decisions are unreviewable.”
Team Trump missed a trick. It should have mounted a judicial challenge to Biden’s pardons. It would have gone something like this:
Plaintiffs: We ask the court to stay the pardons because of the harm the release of “A” will do to X, Y, and Z.
Respondent: The authority to issue pardons is explicitly granted the POTUS by Article II of the Constitution. The POTUS’ authority in such matters is absolute and unreviewable. The merit of a pardon is a political question that the courts are neither equipped nor authorized to answer.
How do you think that would have gone in front of one of these Biden or Obama appointees? Would have been a helluva precedent, and the Leftists judges would have walked right into the trap.
It’s not too late. They can’t have it both ways. The POTUS’ authority to issue pardons is either reviewable or it’s not. The POTUS’s authority to direct the executive branch of government is either reviewable or it’s not. But the same principles apply to both: authority is found in Article II; there are no limits placed on the authority; oversight has been designated to no other authority; both are political acts (not conducted under the auspices of legislation/statute) which the courts have traditionally excused themselves from reviewing. I’d like to see a court rationalize why the former is unreviewable and the latter can be challenged.