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Notes -
Noel Canning's punt will come back to haunt us: Congress must be in a recess of 'sufficient length' to be a real delay, not just the three-day break of Noel Canning... but while booting the conservative-lead requirement that such appointments be to fill a space that became vacant during the recess. So Congress has since gotten into the habit of pro-forma 'sessions' that did nothing but reset the clock, hence why October and August look like this.
In theory, the President has some powers to force Congress to adjourn, in Article II, Section 3:
But afaik this has never been used, a strict read of the text would only allow it to apply where Congress was actively unable to agree on a date of end of session, and because there are no requirements for how Congress can choose to assemble (being having to meet on the first Monday in December) I don't think it would actually work otherwise.
In practice, if Trump tries for force recess appointments, it's extremely likely that the Senate fight further on everything else, so it's a costly decision to make to even try.
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