Some Republican lawmakers are examining a way for President-elect Donald J. Trump to potentially circumvent Senate GOP saboteurs to adjourn Congress and make recess appointments of his nominees for key positions.
The newly elected Trump recently said in a social media post that “recess appointments” would allow him “to get people confirmed in a timely manner” with several Republican senators loyal to Mitch McConnell already having made public comments balking at some of his nominees.
Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner. Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2024
Trump’s picks have set off a firestorm in Washington, D.C. and in the media among those who correctly perceive that he really is going to drain the swamp this time with none striking more fear into the hearts of the corrupt establishment than putting Matt Gaetz in charge of the Justice Department.
Under the Constitution, the president has the power to appoint officials during a “recess” period, allowing him to bypass the usual Senate confirmation process but with Republican obstructionists set to join Dems to sink his nominees, Trump may choose to use a constitutional clause to adjourn Congress himself to get his nominees in place.
The clause would enable Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to work with Trump to adjourn Congress over Senate objections to clear the way for getting his nominees seated through recess appointments.
According to Article II, Section 3, the chief executive may, “on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.”
“We’re still looking at that,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) who chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, told Fox News Digital. “I’m actually talking to a bunch of folks who have been a part of litigating this in the past… reviewing it to kind of figure out the history and the contours of that particular provision, because that’s kind of in the zip code of unprecedented.”
The congressman said that there was “zero question that the House and Senate can choose to adjourn,” which would allow Trump to make the recess appointments.
“We just kind of gotta work through what is the position of the House and the Senate on adjourning and then figure out… that specific question,” Roy told the outlet.
“I have heard that there were some discussions about that, whether it is already currently allowed or procedurally correct, but not that much,” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) told Fox News Digital.
“I think basically, what we’re really, really talking about is, should the president be able to have the people confirmed that he has selected to help him pursue and pass his agenda?” Rosendale added.
“I think that he should be allowed to have the people confirmed that are going to help him pass his agenda… I do also believe that we have to be very careful of breaking norms, because we saw [ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)] do that on many occasions, and it does hurt the institutions,” he cautioned.
Legal experts weighed in on the possibility of Trump’s constitutionally going around a Senate sabotage of his picks.
According to Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Edward Whelan, “The whole idea that a president could conspire with the House to eviscerate the Senate’s advice and consent for a nomination is outrageous.”
“The mechanism that they have in mind to do that would not work. … The House of Representatives has no authority to try to prevent the Senate from staying in session. And its objection to the Senate doing so cannot plausibly create the sort of disagreement that would trigger a presidential authority to adjourn both houses,” he told Fox News Digital.
Article III Project founder and former Senate Judiciary Committee Senior Aide Mike Davis opined that the clause exists specifically for a time like this.
“The Senate’s job is to provide advice and consent. The American people overwhelmingly elected President Trump in a landslide victory. The American people expect the Senate to confirm all of President Trump’s qualified nominees,” Davis told Fox News Digital.
“If the Senate refuses to do that, the Constitution provides a mechanism for the president and the executive brand to [sidestep] them,” he said.
“The speaker should not do that. And my hope is that the Senate president will have more of a backbone,” one anonymous GOP lawmaker told the outlet.
“If he wanted recess appointments, nominating Matt Gaetz was the worst thing he possibly could have done… when you throw him in there, you just kill it easily because you just scared the crap out of, I don’t know, probably 30 or 40 Republican senators,” the lawmaker added.
In addition to Gaetz, Trump’s choice of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence has drawn fierce resistance from Deep State mouthpieces. Tapping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to helm the Department of Health and Human Services is a threat to Big Pharma and the lucrative vaccine industrial complex and has also received intense blowback.
The picks are expected to be torpedoed by a gaggle of Republican senators including Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), both of whom are McConnell loyalists.
“I’ll just tell you this. If these senators oppose President Trump’s appointments, they are openly declaring war on President Trump and his incoming administration,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said. “They need to sit down and get out of the way because it’s not going to be tolerated.”
“I wish the Senate would simply do its job of advice and consent and allow the president to put the persons in his Cabinet of his choosing. But if this thing bogs down, it would be a great detriment to the country, to the American people,” Johnson said during a Sunday appearance on Fox News.
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