Back in 2007, when we were both employed by The Boston Globe, Charlie Savage won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the use of presidential "signing statements" by President George W. Bush. It was perhaps the most important journalistic work done on the inner workings of the Avignon Presidency, and it was pure, leather-assed grinding reportage. We can all be grateful, then, that Savage is Still On The Case.

The other day, the president* signed the John S. McCain, Jr. National Defense Authorization Act, which was pretty much an abomination. However, as Savage outlines in The New York Times, when the lights went out, and while everyone was getting outraged at the fact that the president* failed to mention McCain's name, the signing-statement gremlin came out to play again, with some signifying results.

In a signing statement that the White House quietly issued after 9 p.m. on Monday — about six hours after Mr. Trump signed the bill in a televised ceremony at Fort Drum in New York — Mr. Trump deemed about 50 of its statutes to be unconstitutional intrusions on his presidential powers, meaning that the executive branch need not enforce or obey them as written.

Just the kind of power you want to give to a guy who is stumped by the concept of time zones. But, wait, there's more.

Cheriss May Getty Images

Among them was a ban on spending military funds on “any activity that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea,” the Ukrainian region annexed by Moscow in 2014 in an incursion considered illegal by the United States. He said he would treat the provision and similar ones as “consistent with the president’s exclusive constitutional authorities as commander in chief and as the sole representative of the nation in foreign affairs.”

In other words, the president* doesn't have to enforce the provision in the JSMNDAA of 2019 that denies the legitimacy of Vladimir Putin's land grab in the Ukraine. It also leaves open the option to spend United States military funds to help Putin maintain control in Crimea if the president* so desires to do so.



I mean, Jesus H. Christ in a herring barrel, what does the guy have to do? Put on a fur hat and dance the chechotka on the Truman Balcony?

No puppet! You're the puppet.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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