Presidential Memoranda: Magnitsky, Transgender, Cyber command

We continue to review Presidential memoranda published in the Federal Register.

Delegation of Authority Under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act

This memorandum was signed on September 8th, 2017.  It is addressed to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury.  It delegates certain functions, specifically administration of financial and visa sanctions in accordance with section 1263 of the Magnitsky act (PL114-328).  This allows the President to impose sanctions on foreign persons.  I do believe this is exactly what was discussed during a now famous June meeting in Trump Tower.

Military Service by Transgender Individuals

This memorandum was signed August 25, 2017.  It is addressed to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security and has 5 sections.  After it was issued, some in the armed forces came out to state they could not legally follow it and it also has been successfully challenged in court.

Section 1

This section provides some background and then states that the policy of the US is and shall remain that transgender persons should not be serving in the armed forces even though in 2016, Obama changed the policy to allow it, although the effective date was after he would be out of office.  The date when it would be allowed has been delayed by the armed forces to January 1, 2018 and this memo expresses the desire to delay it further on the basis that it should be allowed in the first place.

Section 2

This section has two subsections.  (b) includes a directive to halt all sex change operations.  (a) directs the Secretaries to maintain the current prohibition on transgender persons being able to serve in the armed forces.

Section 3

This section defines the implementation dates which vary by section, but are within the first quarter of 2018.  This also calls for a report to be submitted on how the policy in the memorandum will be implemented.

Section 4

This section includes a severability clause.  The people who write these kinds of things (i.e. lawyers) usually only put severability clauses in documents that they think need them and they would only need them if there is an expectation that the document will be challenged.  They knew this was going to be controversial but did it anyway.

Section 5

This section includes some fine print to assure that the memo does not overstep the constitutional limits imposed on the Executive Branch.

Elevation of U.S. Cyber Command to a Unified Combatant Command

This memorandum was signed August 15, 2017 and is directed at the Secretary of Defense.  This references 10 USC 167 as the basis for the President's authority to promote the US Cyber command to the level of a Unified Combatant Command.  This seems to be a good thing to do since clearly warfare has had a computer/cyber side to it for at least 10 years if not further as documented in such books as "The cuckoo's egg".  I do not have a good sense of understanding the organizational structures involved to really know if this is the best way to coordinate and strengthen the anti-hacking and counter-hacking capabilities of the US armed forces, but I think this is a good thing and suspect it was brought up from the bureaucracy for implementation.