Trump threatens to suspend Congress
SANAA, April 16 (YPA) – US President Donald Trump has threatened to suspend the work of Congress as the Senate has not approved the appointments he sent to him and his members have not yet voted on them.
On Wednesday, Trump stressed that the constitution allows him to suspend the work of the legislature and approve these appointments himself, something that no president in US history had ever done.
Trump said during his daily press conference at the White House on the developments of the Corona virus in the country: “I will exercise my constitutional powers to suspend the work of Congress in both chambers,” adding, “I prefer not to use this authority.”
The US President expected that the final word on this issue will eventually be transferred to the judiciary, saying: “We will most likely face the court and see who will win.”
In the United States, appointments made by the president to key positions in the country, such as cabinet ministers, ambassadors, Supreme Court justices, and federal courts, must be approved by the Senate in order for it to take effect.
But the Senate, controlled by Trump’s Republican allies, has postponed all of its public hearings due to the Coved-19 pandemic until May 4, and is currently meeting exclusively in “procedural” sessions in which only a few of its members participate.
Republican President Trump condemned “these fictitious procedural sessions,” calling them “a violation of the duty of lawmakers towards their constituents, who cannot afford to do this during this crisis.”
Trump urged the Senate Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to suspend all Senate sessions so that the president can confirm the appointments himself.