If the Secret Service had any authority to prevent a President from doing a particular thing, I doubt we would have seen the aircraft carrier landing by Bush 43. That must have made some officials very nervous.
I think that the President does have that power, since the armed forces he controls will do what he says, and the courts will back him up if it’s challenged.
The question has the same answer as “does the President have the power to order the extrajudicial killing of American citizens?” Like, not on paper, no. But Presidents do it and have yet to face any consequences. So.
So you think Joe Biden could legally order a soldier to come to your house and rough you up?
I think fundamentally we’re talking about different things here.
Your argument is that there’s no law with Constitutional derivation that explicitly gives the President the power to do this, and arguably several that say that he can’t do it.
My argument is that the Secret Service will do it if the President tells them to and that the Courts, Congress, and voters will not subject the President to any punishment for it.
I think that both our claims are correct, and fundamentally we’re disagreeing about what it means to say “the President has the power to X”.
The cases cited aren’t really on point. The President has broad discretion to conduct wars overseas. There’s no question the President can order strikes against enemy combatants, including “targeted strikes” aka assassinations, even if those combatants happen to have U.S. citizenship. There are some murkier issues involved in those cases on who gets to decide who is an “enemy combatant” and the extent of the war powers granted to the President by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of 2001.
But the Supreme Court has been pretty consistent on the right of habeus corpus, dating back to the Civil War.
The Vice President is a Constitutional officer of the government of the United States. Although in practical terms in the modern day the office has evolved into something of an assistant to the President, constitutionally and legally, the Vice President is not a subordinate to the President, and the President has no more legal or constitutional authority to issue orders to the Vice President than he has to issue orders to the Speaker of the House or the Chief Justice of the United States.
It’s true that the VP definitely does not have the authority to override Presidential orders. But I don’t think the President ordering a U.S. citizen, much less a fellow Constitutional officer of the government, held against their will on his personal whim would survive a legal challenge, even if the rationale is that it’s “for their own good”.
In the moment of crisis, of course, Secret Service agents might hold the VP in a secure location against their will, but I don’t think they have any actual legal powers to do so.
And if they did, there would be some very serious issues with the 25th Amendment. One could easily imagine an unbalanced President ordering their VP and cabinet secretaries be detained “for their own protection” in a crisis to avoid being replaced under the 25th.
And after the moment of crisis (assuming that the crisis was a legitimate one, and not the President attempting to circumvent the 25th Amendment) do you think that the President who ordered them to do so would face legal repercussions? I still think the answer is “no”.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think that keeping the VP or cabinet members in a bunker prevent them from executing the 25th. They can still communicate with the outside world and can still transmit things in writing to the Senate.
They are relevant to my point, which is that Presidents take actions that are facially unconstitutional and face no consequences for them.
Since this is GQ, what I think is pretty irrelevant. (But I think it would depend on the totality of the circumstances).
And I personally happen to disagree that killing enemy combatants who happen to be U.S. citizens is facially unconstitutional, while acknowledging the particulars of those cases aren’t that clear-cut. But, again, this is GQ, not GD, so we’re back to the fact that your cite doesn’t actually address the President’s powers to forcibly confine the Vice President against their will.
Certainly the President does have the authority, both de facto and de jure, to order the Secret Service to protect the Vice President. And certainly protecting an individual can involve restricting that individual’s freedom. The President has no authority to order the Secret Service to lock up the Vice President just because he feels like it, but I don’t think it’s at all clear that he can’t order them to keep him in protective custody as the best way to protect him from a clear and present danger, nor that the Secret Service on their own initiative can’t keep him in protective custody if, in their own professional assessment, that’s the best way to protect him.
What authority do you rely upon to say that the president can order me, you, the VP or anyone else to be confined for our own good? Even if we really are in danger and the president is acting in good faith, where does that power derive from?
I apologize for veering into GD territory, but I think that the thrust of my point is an appropriate GQ answer (to an offshoot question that I am the one who raised, so maybe I should take it elsewhere). To reiterate:
- If the President told the Secret Service not to let the VP leave the bunker in a time of crisis, would they let him leave? No.
- Afterward, would he face any legal repercussions for doing so? No.
- Is there a legal document that explicitly gives him the legal authority to do those things? No.
Obviously, the answers to all of these are conjecture, because such a thing hasn’t actually happened (or at least hasn’t come to light). But I think there are pretty reasonable evidentiary grounds to support them. The purpose of my link was not to suggest that the cases are based on the same legal doctrine, but to point out that the President’s de facto power is more expansive than it might seem. I accept that we don’t see those things as analogous, but do you disagree with any of my three numbered points above?
I think you might be parsing my phrasing a little more closely than I intended. Everything we’re writing here is “what we think”.
I think the answer to the question (I) posed about the VP being forcibly confined has a factual answer, putting it reasonably in the realm of GQ, and I’ve suggested what I think that answer is. If you think I’m wrong, then by all means let’s throw some cites at each other and see what sticks. But if you generally agree with me, then… maybe we can call it answered and we don’t have to dissect the cites.
I’m not convinced of that, and frankly I’m puzzled by your absolute certainty. But I’m also unaware of any factual cites to determine this. Do you have any?
Ditto.
Here, we’re agreed.
I frankly think we’re stuck with speculation on the first two points. If you can find any factual cites that are on point, I’d certainly be interested. Beyond that, I don’t see much to meaningfully discuss in GQ, and it’s frankly not something that interests me enough as a hypothetical to bother with in GD.
Voluntary protective custody is definitely a thing. Involuntary protective custody of convicted felons being held in prison is a thing, but that’s just a particular application of what’s already involuntary custody. Material witness warrants are a thing, at least in some jurisdictions. As is involuntary commitment to a medical facility. But those generally require court orders.
I’m unaware of any general legal authority for law enforcement agents, even on direct orders of the President, to confine anyone against their will for their own protection.
I think we’re all agreed that in extremis, such as the case cited upthread of Vice President Cheney being carried to a secure location on 9/11, the Secret Service may well override the protectee’s wishes in the heat of the moment. But I’m seriously having trouble believing that if Cheney had demanded to be let out of the bunker, that the Secret Service would have held him there against his will.
Again, what legal authority would they have to do so?
Given a national emergency like 9/11? Korematsu v United States
Although now SCOTUS may be willing to ignore stare decisis for that particular case.
Moderator Action
We’re veering off pretty far into GD territory here. Since the factual aspects of the OP seem to have been answered fairly well, instead of trying to steer this back into GQ territory I think the thread will be better served by moving it to GD.
Moved from GQ to GD.
Random? Nah… surely it was a Timmy’s! 
It already did. Trump v. Hawaii overruled Korematsu:
The dissent’s reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—“has no place in law under the Constitution.” 323 U. S., at 248 (Jackson, J., dissenting).
But they sided with Trump.
It seems the court repudiated the Korematsu decision but was anything changed as a legal matter?
Put another way, does a future court have to view what you quoted as a legal decision or just rhetoric?
Or, put yet one more way, was Korematsu explicitly overturned as a matter of law?
I thought it was dicta, not an explicit overturning.
I suppose some law professor could argue that it was only dicta as it wasn’t strictly necessary for the holding of the case, but it was part of the ratio decidendi of the case.
The majority argues that principles A, B, and C support Trump’s position. The dissent argues that really what they are using is D. The majority responds that they are not using D, in fact, we hereby overrule D. (D=Korematsu).
So it would be a strange type of dicta that was so intertwined with the case, but I concede the point that law professors could argue it was dicta. But as the opinion says, literally nobody believes in Korematsu, and would ever use it’s logic again.