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For the next two months, before Joe Biden takes office, Donald Trump will be the outgoing president of the United States and will continue to have most of his powers. Many wonder how he will use these last few weeks in office, as he does not seem to intend to behave like other defeated presidents of the past, and what consequences it could have on the Biden administration. Some news of the last days can already give us an idea of what awaits us.
On Monday, in fact, Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, with whom he had long had bad relations and who had already been preparing a letter of resignation for weeks, he explained. CNN. The decision is not directly linked to the elections: their relations had begun to deteriorate in 2019, when Esper recommended that Trump restore economic aid to Ukraine, which the president had blocked in order to pressure local authorities to investigate the story of The Son of Biden (that’s the story that Trump was later indicted). Esper also spoke out against the use of the military to suppress the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer.
But it seems that Esper’s firing may be followed by several others. According to American newspapers, in fact, Trump had long intended to use the immediate post-election period, both in the event of victory and defeat, to get rid of various members of the administration whom he has poorly supported over the years. a long time, but that he could not expel before voting to avoid controversies damaging to the electoral campaign. Esper was one of the main suspects, but there are others after him. One is Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, whom Trump has been criticizing for some time because he did not sufficiently support the White House allegations of voter fraud and the alleged threat from ANTIFA activists.
– Read also: 15 things you might not know about Joe Biden
Administration sources confirmed to the US media that Wray’s firing has been a topic of discussion for a long time, as well as that of Gina Haspel, CIA director whom Trump accuses of wanting to delay the publication of some documents that, according to him , they would prove the existence of a conspiracy of the “deep state” – expression with which the North American bureaucratic apparatus is sometimes indicated – to its detriment.
On his own, Biden could reappoint Wray and Hespel once he was in office if they were fired, and he could still elect the people he trusts to those positions. But such a decision by Trump would cause great chaos at the intelligence and defense cusp, which many believe could jeopardize the national security of the United States in the coming months and would make the politicization of positions even more evident than, before Trump. They had been further separated from the executive. All in a particularly delicate moment such as the transition between one administration and another.
Another who has been included in the list of those who risk the job is Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and chief scientific adviser to the White House. At one of the last rallies before the election, Trump had not said too implicitly that he could have fired him immediately after the election. Biden, for his part, said he would hire him.
Emily Sydnor, professor of political science at Southwestern University, explained to Bloomberg that “when there is a president at the end of his term, there are few checks to his ability to exercise executive power.” Without the worry of having to go back to the vote, the president’s only deterrent to action is de facto practice and respect for institutional traditions – aspects that Trump has often ignored.
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In addition to the layoffs, which may also include other figures in the administration, there is talk of Trump using the power of presidential pardon. This would not be new: Most presidents, in the last weeks of their term, have at times appealed against it with controversial decisions, such as when Bill Clinton pardoned his stepbrother Roger Clinton for an old conviction for possession and sale of cocaine. Barack Obama, however, before leaving the White House, decided among other things to commute the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former US military analyst sentenced to 35 years for providing confidential material to Wikileaks.
Second CNNTrump may decide to pardon Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser, who had vowed to lie to the FBI after being involved in the Russia investigation. Attorney Paul Manafort and former adviser George Papadopulous are two other figures convicted as part of the Robert Mueller investigation and who could be pardoned by Trump.
But there is also another possibility that is increasingly being discussed: that Trump decides to pardon himself, to try to avoid some of the different trials that are likely to await him outside the White House, and without presidential immunity. The Constitution does not explicitly prohibit it, and jurists and constitutionalists have long been debating whether it can be done. The most widely shared indication is that no, it is not constitutional: but Trump could try it anyway. And even, Trump could grant a “preventive” pardon, that is, before there are formal accusations, to his family members, who could be involved in some financial investigations related to the Trump Organization. However, these provisions would eventually only apply to federal crimes – and many of the crimes Trump and his company are charged with are actually state crimes.
– Read also: Trials awaiting Trump
Trump will also have the opportunity to address several pending issues with executive orders, pieces of legislation that do not require congressional approval and that he has made extensive use of in the past. Second Bloomberg, Trump could make decisions to deliberately put Biden in trouble: for months there has been talk of a partial reform of immigration laws, in a more restrictive sense, which could become very difficult to manage for the next administration.
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