A former State Department insider is sounding the alarm over what he says could become one of the most dangerous tools available to President Donald Trump — a hidden emergency power system that no court has ever fully reviewed and Congress has never publicly examined.
The warning centers around a little-known set of directives called Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or PEADs.
According to former U.S. special envoy Jonathan Winer, the secret documents were originally created during the Cold War as a way to preserve government operations during catastrophic national emergencies.
But critics fear the powers could be used for something far more controversial.
Speaking on the podcast “The Court of History,” Winer warned that the directives could theoretically allow a president to take extraordinary actions — including seizing property, detaining citizens, or bypassing traditional congressional oversight — before courts even have a chance to intervene.
And according to Winer, that possibility has become increasingly alarming under Trump’s current administration.
“The key thing about PEADs is they’ve never been reviewed by Congress or anyone outside administration,” Winer warned.
“They would be tested legally and constitutionally only after they’re used.”
The concerns come as Trump’s White House released a new counterterrorism strategy that places domestic groups such as Antifa alongside foreign extremist organizations as national security threats.
Winer argued that when combined with Trump’s expanding executive powers and recent rhetoric targeting political opponents, the legal framework begins resembling some of the most controversial surveillance and detention strategies used decades ago under former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Host Sidney Blumenthal suggested the situation becomes even more dangerous because key administration officials would likely comply with any extraordinary directives issued from the White House.
That includes figures like Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.
“What makes this moment different,” Blumenthal argued, “is that the people who would carry these orders out are already in place.”
Winer agreed — and issued a chilling final warning.
“That history echoes,” he said. “And those echoes are pretty loud right now.”