Update of Trump's Executive Orders and Memos

 I. The Trump Watch: an Update of Executive Orders and Memos

1.) Student Loan 0% Interest Pause

On August 8, Trump issued a memorandum ordering an extension of the 0% interest rate and a payment pause for federal student-loan borrowers until December 31. To some extent,  it was a redundant copy of the CARES Act, which suspended payments, interest and collection of government-held student loans.The bigger problem is that Trump's order leaves out 9 million student borrowers, according to Seth Frotman, executive director of Student Borrowers Protection Center. Once more, the order is considered to be "vague," and less expansive than Congress would prefer.

2.) Extra Unemployment Benefits

Officials in Montana, Texas, and Arizona have said that their states have exhausted the six weeks of extra unemployment money from the FEMA budget. And FEMA has confirmed to Yahoo Money that funding is available for six weeks only, with the starting date being August 1, 2020. Fifteen states have started paying out funds from the FEMA budget, which has a cap of $44 billion -- Trump took the money from FEMA without going through Congress, to which the Constitution gives the power of the purse. 

Fifteen states have started paying out funds from the FEMA budget, and a total of thirty-one states have been approved for funding (these numbers are as of September 10, 2020). 

3.) Eviction Memorandum

As I said in a prior post, all the Trump memo did was request federal agencies to see what they could do about evictions relief for renters. Trump may have found an end-around the "toothless" memo he put out -- assuming he is behind the new CDC order. The CDC issued an order banning landlords from evicting tenants that can no longer pay rent due to a pandemic-related expense or hardship through the end of 2020. This is a test of the CDC's power that will likely prompt several legal challenges. Advocates for both tenants and the real estate industry fear that the eviction protections expiring at the end of the year could create a dangerous housing crisis at the start of 2021.

4.) Suspension of the Payroll Tax

There doesn't seem to any movement in corporations and companies in regard to suspending the collection of the 6.2% payroll tax from their employees through December 31. These business entities are concerned that they will need to claw back the suspended taxes from their employees after December 31, or need to pay the taxes themselves. Meanwhile, President Trump is stuck with his public declaration that he will eliminate the payroll tax in the near future. 

II. A Summary of Illegal Orders to Whistleblower

A document released by the the House Intelligence Committee summarizes numerous complaints that Brian Murphy, the principal deputy under secretary for the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, had previously filed with the DHS's inspector general. 1) Murphy said he was illegally directed to manipulate intelligence to support aggressive border policies.He refused to say that intelligence assessments he prepared for Homeland Secretary Kirtjen Nielsen supported the policy argument that large numbers of KSTs ("Known or Suspected Terrorists") were entering the country. There is a distinction between a  SIA (Special Interest Alien), and a KST. 2.) Murphy made the case that Nielsen repeatedly and deliberately lied to Congress. 3.) Acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, illegally tried to distort intelligence reports he viewed as too favorable to asylum seekers. 4.) Under secretary David Glame was almost fired by Trump after he confirmed Russian interference with U.S. elections. (Trump's staff convinced him that it would be a mistake). 5.) Acting Secretary of DHS, Chad Wolf, told Murphy to stop reporting on Russian interference, and to focus on China and Iran. Wolf stated that these instructions came from the White House National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien. 6.) Trump officials were concerned that discussing the threats posed by white supremacists and Russian intelligence operations would reflect badly on Trump, and they preferred that Murphy's team work on "violent 'left-wing' groups like antifa."