Time: “Over the decades, the book has come to include ready-made orders to suspend habeas corpus, the ancient and bedrock principle that those arrested appear before a judge, put parts of the country under military control, impose martial law, block Americans from traveling overseas, and restrict telecommunications… When Donald Trump was in the Oval Office, members of his national security staff actively worked to keep him from learning the full extent of these interpretations of presidential authority, concerned that he would abuse them.”
“Now some former Trump advisors are raising the alarm about the dangers of Trump having access to the Doomsday Book in a second term. The former officials—which include Mark Harvey, who oversaw the Doomsday Book while on Trump’s National Security Council, and Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security—worry that Trump would use the powers in situations that fall far short of the crises they were drafted to address.”
“Trump has a history of testing the limits of presidential powers, and in a second term would be free of many of the guardrails that restricted his first one.”
