The following is excerpted from "The Privateer" Financial Newsletter (my favorite financial news publication). You can find the orignal in full text at: www.the-privateer.com (gold pages) Links to the EO are located there also.

Let's Have An Emergency "I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of America ...hereby declare a national emergency."

Great Horny Toads! Pass the popcorn, will you, the Pres is at it again.

When a President of the United States wants to do something without involving either the people or Congress, other than by informing them that the deed is done, he makes use of what are called "Executive Orders". Mr Clinton is fond of such Orders, and makes use of them frequently. But while Mr Clinton often issues Executive Orders, they do NOT always come complete with the emphasised phrase quoted in this one. Mr Clinton has declared a "national emergency" - which gives him the power (should he choose to accept it) to do literally ANYTHING, regardless of any provisions extant in either the Constitution or the law of the land. This does not mean that Mr Clinton WILL make use of these extraordinary powers, it simply means that he CAN.

To read this particular executive order, verbatim as issued from the White House, click on the link above. To read Mr Clinton's explanation to Congress, click here. As we said, Mr Clinton is fond of Executive Orders. Here is another one, dated June 23, in which a "national emergency" is NOT invoked.

The issue which provides the reason for this Executive Order has, according to Mr Clinton's own explanation, been simmering since May 5, When the Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation informed his U.S. counterpart (Mr. Richardson) that Russia would no longer be shipping "highly enriched uranium" to the U.S. under what is known as the HEU Agreement. This agreement, extant since 1993, provides for the Russian Federation to ship "highly enriched uranium" - HEU (found in atomic warheads) to the U.S. for conversion into low enriched uranium - LEU, suitable for commercial nuclear reactors and the generation of electricity.

We are not going to go into details here - the links above provide full details. We simply point out that Mr Clinton has decided to invoke an Executive Order and declare a NATIONAL EMERGENCY in response to an issue that has been on his table for the past SIX WEEKS.

Last week, we rhetorically asked why we were taking a rehashed report from a Fed economist seriously. This week, we have a Presidential declaration of a NATIONAL EMERGENCY. We cannot see how anyone, inside or outside the U.S., could NOT take it seriously. We repeat: "Mr Clinton has declared a "national emergency" - which gives him the power (should he choose to accept it) to do literally ANYTHING, regardless of any provisions extant in either the Constitution or the law of the land. This does not mean that Mr Clinton WILL make use of these extraordinary powers, it simply means that he CAN."

So What Has All This To Do With Gold? Last week, a trial balloon was sent aloft regarding concerted Central Bank Gold selling. Any credible plan for concerted Central Bank Gold selling is a non-starter without the co-operation of the Europeans, who hold more Official Gold than the U.S. does. This week, The President of the United States has declared a National Emergency in regard to Russia, a nation on the periphery of Europe which very much wants to become part of what is slowly becoming a United Europe.

In this regard (and as Privateer subscibers already know), Mr Clinton recently shocked the European Union (EU) by actually offering Russian President Putin membership in the EU - a boon which it was not within his power to grant. Now, he has invoked a National Emergency in regard to that same nation, under a situation which was already known about when he made that offer to Mr Putin.

A very large political fissure, as yet invisible, must have opened. Suffice it to say here that the Captain and Crew of The Privateer are keeping a VERY close watch on this situation. We have expanded this analysis for subscribers on our Subscribers pages (username/password required).

The final battle was and is always going to be between the Dollar and Gold. We think Mr Clinton has just raised the stakes - dramatically.

)2000 The Privateer Market Letter - (Archives)

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-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), June 26, 2000

Answers

Here are the urls to the "letter to Congress" and the EO declaring a national emergency:

President Clinton has declared a National Emergency via EO. The

1) The Privateer, gold pages  www.the-privateer/gold6.html

2) Letter to Congress  http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0622-150.html

Excerpt from letter to Congress:

Message to Congress: National Emergency with Russian Federation U.S. Newswire 22 Jun 18:19 Message to the Congress: National Emergency with the Russian Federation To: National Desk Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580 WASHINGTON, June 22 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following was released by the White House today: TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: Pursuant to section 204(b) of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. 1703(b) and section 301 of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1631, I hereby report that I have exercised my authority to declare a national emergency to deal with the threat posed to the United States by the risk of nuclear proliferation created by the accumulation in the Russian Federation of a large volume of weapons-usable fissile material. The United States and the Russian Federation have entered into a series of agreements that provide for the conversion of highly enriched uranium (HEU) extracted from Russian nuclear weapons into low enriched uranium (LEU) for use in commercial nuclear reactors. The Russian Federation recently suspended its performance under these agreements because of concerns that payments due to it under these agreements may be subject to attachment, garnishment, or other judicial process, in the United States. Accordingly, I have issued an Executive Order to address the unusual and extraordinary risk of nuclear proliferation created by this situation.

3) EO - http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri- res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/6/22/10.text.1

Excerpt from EO:

- BLOCKING PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION RELATING TO THE DISPOSITION OF HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM EXTRACTED FROM NUCLEAR WEAPONS - - By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code. I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of America,in view of the policies underlying Executive Order 12938 of November 14, 1994, and Executive Order 13085 of May 26, 1998, find that the risk ofnuclear proliferation created by the accumulation of a large volume of weapons-usable fissile material in the territory of the RussianFederation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to thenational security and foreign policy of the United States, and herebydeclare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), June 26, 2000.