But I think we are getting far afield here. What the president’s war powers are, and how they are limited, is an interesting question and very much subject to debate. But this thread only talks about whether a president can say, “You, VP…” or “You, individual…I hereby order that you be held under guard because I personally believe you are in danger if you are not held prisoner.”
I see no support legally for such a thing. My cite is laws against battery or false imprisonment, and no exception for a president just wanting you to be safe.
Maybe? Where am I and what am I doing at the time? Who is the President issuing the order to? On what grounds?
If we’re both just walking down the street, and the President yells to his security detail, “Arrest that man!” while pointing at me, I imagine in the heat of the moment they’d obey.
But once I’m subdued and in custody, I’d expect them to ask the President what they’re arresting me for. And if he can’t give an articulable reason…I’m not sure. They might just release me, since they have no actual legal grounds to hold me. They might take me in for processing, but they’d almost certainly release me almost immediately. If they didn’t, the suits for a writ of habeus corpus and the civil suits for false arrest and false imprisonment would be slam dunks.
If the President says it’s for my own good, that I need to be held in custody to protect my life, if there’s an actual emergency going on, in the heat of the moment, they might well do so. But I doubt they’d hold me against my will after the immediate danger has passed.
But I don’t know. I could be wrong. Are they are any actual cases where something like this has happened?
I certainly doubt a president has ever done this in public but we do know of cases where presidents tried to use their authority to have law enforcement agencies go after political opponents (with varying results).
Sure, but there’s a difference between “investigate this guy and see if you can dig up any dirt” on the one hand, and “hold that constitutional officer of the U.S. government against their will,” on the other.
Also, the FBI has changed dramatically since the Hoover years, and we know that President Trump got increasingly frustrated with them and various directors because they pushed back against him.
Again, in a moment of crisis, I imagine agents of the Secret Service or another Federal law enforcement agency would obey an order to secure an individual without worrying about the exact legal basis for the order. But I seriously doubt they would continue to hold that individual against their will, if the only legal basis is that the President says it’s for their own protection.
So does the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson shed any more light on this?
It is just one witness telling a story they heard someone else tell, but it sure does seem likely in this case a sitting POTUS wanted to do something the secret service didn’t want him to do. He even announced that he was going to do it on TV… and then it simply wasn’t allowed.
Apparently all it takes is two people to direct the most powerful person on the planet to sit down and go back to his room; like a couple parents driving a misbehaving child home from Chuckey Cheese early.
In the terrible circumstance where I was the President, I would call my protection crew in at the next couple of shift changes, and thank them for doing a job that was, just like mine dangerous. Then I would, as clearly as I could, and politely if possible, say that it was up to me how much risk to take in any given circumstance. And if they couldn’t accept that I wasn’t going to be trapped in the White House and the Beast, I’d appreciate their putting papers in to transfer to other duty as soon as practical.
Then, unless it was a time when restaurants are crowded, my wife and I would go out to dinner at a well-reviewed nearby Chinese restaurant – with no traffic stopped. Sometimes we’d go by car, and sometimes on the Metro. The security measure would be that it would all be unannounced.
I do fear that with the Supreme Court being what it is, this approach is getting more dangerous.
The testimony also touched on something along those lines; I forget the proper terminology but there are announced presidential moves (pre-planned and advertised well in advance) and unannounced moves (still pre-planned but on shorter notice, involving fewer security people, kept secret and just done). It sounded like his security on that day did try to scramble up a plan to pull off an unannounced move so he could go to the capital… IIRC they showed security texts saying they were pulling it together and even showed the route planned.
BUT, his closest security decided it was just too risky and cancelled it; apparently against his will. 45 is more than impulsive enough and plenty fond of firing people to have done something about it if he could, so you’d think that would have been his move when he was told “no we’re going to the Whitehouse” instead. “Oh really? you’re fired Jones. Smith - drive to the capital; I have absolute authority!”.
Only that didn’t happen. He was just told “no” and shooshed away by the people actually making the decisions in the real world. That’s why I resurrected this thread: it seems to be a perfect example of what the OP asked, involves a POTUS very well known to push for his own way no matter what, and shows the real-world difference between theoretical legal “he could do X” and the practical “this is what actually happens”
The Secret Service’s behavior was the obvious common sense answer given earlier in this thread, and waved away by many. Sort of QAnon lite behavior. Maybe PAnon. Or SDMBAnon?
I don’t know about absolute personal safety, but if you are a president or commander and you feel like a latte, you don’t have to get up from your desk and stand in line at Starbuck’s, you send a guy to do it.
There is a joke about the military officer test which asks how to build a ditch (or some other fortification). The correct answer is, you tell the sergeant where you want the ditch.
If I remember correctly, Bush wanted to fly directly back to Washington from Florida but the Secret Service, USAF, and heaven knows how many other agencies pushed back on that. It was not a good idea, especially considering that United Flight 93 was still in the air at that time. Bush was then flown from Florida to Air Force Bases in Louisiana and Nebraska, to kill time safely until air traffic had been cleared.
Nebraska wasn’t chosen simply because it’s safely far away from anything interesting or hazardous that may have been going on at that moment.
The United States Strategic Command operations center at Offutt AFB is a full National Command Authority ops center with comprehensive command, control, and communications facilities. The president can do more than just hunker down there; they can remain fully situationally aware and exercise complete operational command of the government during a crisis.
As these things go, it’s one of the better choices available for a Commander in Chief at that kind of moment.
I may be drawing too fine a point, but it seems to me that the secret service nixed driving to the Capitol.
I imagine that if Trump had said, “screw it. I’ll walk,” he wouldn’t have been escorted back to the White House. Instead, I bet his security detail would have made do as best they could (this frequently comes up when a President, at their inauguration, decides to get out of the motorcade and walk part of the route).
So, it may be true that the President doesn’t have absolute authority over the secret service. They may have their own command structure, and he isn’t necessarily at the top. But, that doesn’t mean that they have authority over him, either.
It’s the difference between an agent telling the president (with tears in their eyes) “I can’t do that sir. I’ve been ordered not to” versus an agent improperly telling the President “You must do this. It’s for your own good.”