Secret DOJ Memos: Bush Decides What Is Constitutional
This morning, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered an impassioned floor
speech to help frame the debate over FISA reform. Using his privilege as a
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Whitehouse said he has "spent
hours poring over" secret opinions issued by the Department of Justice's
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) - and he took notes.
Whitehouse is a lawyer, a former U.S. Attorney, a former legal counsel to
Rhode Island's Governor, and a former State Attorney General. He said he
sought and received permission to have his notes declassified because he
wanted to show the public "what the Bush administration does behind our
backs when they think no one is looking."
"To give you an example of what I read," Whitehouse said on the Senate
floor, "I have gotten three legal propositions from these secret OLC
opinions declassified. Here they are, as accurately as my note-taking could
reproduce them from the classified documents":
1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional
requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he
wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than
violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.
2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article
II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President's
authority under Article II.
3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President's legal
determinations.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2007/12/07/whitehouse-rips-the-white-house/
Dubby has declared himself Dictator. Go find the WMDS, moron, and stfu.
War president my *****, Bush is a murdering gangster who says he's a
christian, that's all.
The Legislative Branch makes law; The Executive Branch executes the law;
The Judicial Branch decides whether or not the law or the execution thereof
is constitutional.
The President has no authority to unilaterally decide what is
constitutional or not. That's the way the system is supposed to work. Do you
have any respect at all for our constitutional system?
.
|
