Please do something about Trump's daily violations of the Constitution!
2 so far! Help us get to 5 signers!
Congress passed a law requiring US firms to cease hosting TikTok unless its parent, ByteDance, divested control of TikTok.
The law required divestiture to take place by January 2025 and provided sanctions against US firms that continued to host TikTok in violation of the congressional ban.
However, the deadline is long past, and Trump has abandoned the argument that he extended it. Instead, Trump has issued letters to specific US companies saying that he is exercising his authority as president to exempt them from the congressional prohibition against hosting TikTok after the deadline.
What part of the Constitution authorizes the president to selectively grant waivers from congressional mandates? Trump is, in effect, granting “pardons” from compliance with civil laws—a power not granted in the Constitution. Even King George didn’t have this power!
The exemptions granted by Trump exceed the power to pardon crimes against the United States, since the pardon power only covers criminal offenses, not violation of the civil code. This pardon power would, in effect, allow the president to authorize whole new categories of illegal conduct, provided he can find a sufficient foreign policy-related excuse.
Trump claims that his power over foreign affairs authorizes him to exempt US companies from compliance with congressional legislation. That makes absolutely no sense and is a frontal assault on the Constitution.
This single instance of ignoring the Constitution is grounds for impeachment, conviction, and removal from office. And yet it is treated as a low-frequency hum in the background noise of the Trump administration’s daily violations of the Constitution. The “private letters” exempting US companies from compliance with congressional laws is a scandal of major proportions that must not be normalized. Please do something about Trump's daily violations of the Constitution!