Hmmm. Another nerve wracking read, lol. Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or PEAD’s. Never heard of them before reading this, and it sounds like their contents are not well known either. Again, if one does not trust Trump....
Presidential emergency action documents, which grant vast authority to the president in extraordinary situations, are so secret even Congress cannot see them – and that troubles constitutional scholars
www.cbsnews.com
“Koppel asked, "Several times during his administration, President Trump has made allusions to secret powers that he has that we don't know about. Is he making that up?"
"Well, not exactly," Goitein replied. "And what's alarming about that is that no one really knows what the limits of those claimed authorities might be, because they are often developed and kept in secret."
Goitein says what little we do know about PEADs comes from references to them in other documents, some of which are now declassified.
"They originated in the Eisenhower administration as part of an effort to try to plan for a potential Soviet nuclear attack," Goitein said. "But since then, they've expanded to address other types of emergencies as well. No presidential emergency action document has even been released, or even leaked. Not even Congress has access to them, which is really pretty extraordinary when you consider that even the most highly-classified covert military and intelligence operations have to be reported to at least eight Members of Congress, the 'Gang of Eight.'"
"You're saying they are not consulting with Congress?" Koppel asked.
"Exactly," said Goitein. "Congress is not aware of these documents, and from public sources we know that at least in the past these documents have purported to do things that are not permitted by the Constitution – things like martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus and the roundup and detention of people not suspected of any crime."
