Above the Law...

Wow!

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=41185

 

Issuing contempt charges would be a very bad move constitutionally. As was previously pointed out, the subpoenas should have never been issued to begin with. The information the Dems wanted was offered to them. It was simply not in an arena where they could make political hay out of it so they refused.

I think the Dems would lose this one in court (which may be good for the Republicans). There is no criminal issue at stake, and the potential of the president to get honest advice is at stake.

So above the law? Not yet. There is no law that says the WH must divulge internal information to Congress.

Remember the separation of powers and the checks and balances. The Congress is not superior to the WH.

 

I figured a second "wow" was in order.:thumbs:

After Pastor Larry's response, a third one is in order.

Wow! PL Good post.

 

How can you say that? The WH is trying to keep its powers separate from the Congress. The Congress seems determined to impede on the internal deliberations of the WH. It seems to me that the Congress is the one not respecting separation of powers and checks and balances. They believe there should be no check on their desire to gain information. The WH disagrees.

All is well here. I trust it is with you and hope you have a great Sunday in worship.

 

The Supreme Court held in 1959 that, "Since Congress may only investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate, it cannot inquire into matters which are within the exclusive province of one or the other branches of the Government."

Democrats in Congress has picked a fight they, constitutionally speaking, can't win.

 

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/facultyPhoto.php?cn=John+Choon+Yoo John Choon Yoo
Title: Professor of Law
Email Address: [email protected]
John C. Yoo's Website
John Yoo received his B.A., summa cum laude, in American history from Harvard University. Between college and law school, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. He then clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit.

Professor Yoo joined the Boalt faculty in 1993, then clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995-96. From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers.

Professor Yoo has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and the Free University of Amsterdam, and he held the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Trento, Italy in 2006. He has received research fellowships from the University of California, Berkeley, the Olin Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Professor Yoo also has received the Paul M. Bator Award for excellence in legal scholarship and teaching from the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. He has testified before the judiciary committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and has advised the State of California on constitutional issues.

Professor Yoo has published articles about foreign affairs, international law and constitutional law in a number of the nation's leading law journals. He is the author of The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2005), and War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terrorism (Grove/Atlantic 2006).
Education:
A.B., Harvard University (1989)
J.D., Yale University (1992)


http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/falnpotus.htm

Assertion of Executive Privilege With Respect To Clemency Decision

Executive privilege may properly be asserted in response to a congressional subpoena seeking documents and testimony concerning the deliberations in connection with President's decision to offer clemency to sixteen individuals.

Executive privilege may properly be asserted in response to a congressional subpoena seeking testimony by the Counsel to the President concerning the performance of official duties on the basis that the Counsel serves as an immediate adviser to the President and is therefore immune from compelled congressional testimony.

September 16, 1999

THE PRESIDENT
THE WHITE HOUSE

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: You have requested my legal advice as to whether executive privilege may properly be asserted in response to several subpoenas issued by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight of the House of Representatives to the White House, the Department of Justice, and certain White House and Department officials seeking documents and testimony concerning your decision to offer clemency to sixteen individuals.

SNIP

"Since Congress may only investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate, it cannot inquire into matters which are within the exclusive province of one of the other branches of the Government." Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 111-12 (1959).

SNIP

In conclusion, it is my legal judgment that executive privilege may properly be asserted with respect to the entirety of the testimony of the Counsel of the President, based on the immunity that position has with respect to compelled congressional testimony.

Janet Reno
Attorney General

 

Wasn't it John Yoo who said the president could legally have children totured in front of their parents to make them talk?

This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.
Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the (XXXXXXXXX) of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

SOURCE

Thought so. He's my new hero now that torture and such is acceptable to Christians.

 

JOHN YOO: Well, first this is not the kind of rules that apply in war; it would be a special exception. So for example, in Iraq the United States captured hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war. They don't have lawyers; they don't get to go to federal court and make a claim; they can't hire Johnny Cochran or David Cole, run to federal court and say, I'm not really an Iraqi POW -- free me, I want the government to show the reason why they thought I was an enemy prisoner. That's just not the way laws of war work.
The second thing is you have David Cole as your lawyer; he's going to say don't say anything to the government. That totally defeats the purpose of interrogating enemy combatants to try to get information about the future.
Let me just say -- the congressional authorization issue, it's a hard issue. I mean, the Congress did pass an authorization immediately after Sept. 11, authorizing the use of force against al-Qaida and anyone else involved with the Sept. 11 attacks. So the question is: is that enough to give you detention authority or not? I think the 2nd Circuit actually reached a weird result because it would say that the government can use force -- Congress authorized you to use force against people -- but they didn't authorize you to detain those same people.


Very good point.!:thumbs: Thanks for the article.

 

Nice move by BiR to change the focus of his own thread to John Yoo instead of the issue he started with.

His case for Bush being "above the law" had completely fell apart.

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/falnpotus.htm

Assertion of Executive Privilege With Respect To Clemency Decision

Executive privilege may properly be asserted in response to a congressional subpoena seeking documents and testimony concerning the deliberations in connection with President's decision to offer clemency to sixteen individuals.

Executive privilege may properly be asserted in response to a congressional subpoena seeking testimony by the Counsel to the President concerning the performance of official duties on the basis that the Counsel serves as an immediate adviser to the President and is therefore immune from compelled congressional testimony.

September 16, 1999
THE PRESIDENT
THE WHITE HOUSE

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: You have requested my legal advice as to whether executive privilege may properly be asserted in response to several subpoenas issued by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight of the House of Representatives to the White House, the Department of Justice, and certain White House and Department officials seeking documents and testimony concerning your decision to offer clemency to sixteen individuals.

SNIP

"Since Congress may only investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate, it cannot inquire into matters which are within the exclusive province of one of the other branches of the Government." Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 111-12 (1959).

SNIP

In conclusion, it is my legal judgment that executive privilege may properly be asserted with respect to the entirety of the testimony of the Counsel of the President, based on the immunity that position has with respect to compelled congressional testimony.

Janet Reno
Attorney General



Barenblatt is often quoted in Executive Privilege cases.

Democrats are wasting their time...as usual.

 

Yes it is.

You went on to post this off topic post (unless your topic was John Yoo):

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec03/terror_12-18.html

JOHN YOO: I think it's true if American citizens, but I don't see any reason in the judicial decision why it would be limited to American citizens and the other thing is there is no reason to think al-Qaida would only hire non-U.S. Citizens as their operatives in fact, they're moving in the other direction, it seems.
JIM LEHRER: And so you would say -- you would disagree with the court and David Cole -- you say the president already has -- I just said in the in the News Summary -- but Padilla was arrested at O'Hare Airport in Chicago 18 months ago on charges or on suspicion that he was going to -- he was involved in plans to detonate what's called a dirty bomb, radioactive bomb, et cetera. That, in your opinion, would be enough to hold him no matter what?
JOHN YOO: Right. I think there is two grounds. I think that's exactly right; I do disagree with David, I think the 2nd Circuit got it wrong -- two reasons: one, the president has commander in chief authority to protect the country against attacks. And if Padilla's coming to the United States to blow up a radioactive nuclear device, his commander in chief authority allows him to protect the country by detaining people who threaten to harm the country.


I guess that's what you meant by :

"I simply noted that I read what John Yoo wrote in the Wall Street Journal"

All this misdirection on your own thread. :laugh:

Your scrambling denials are just making you look worse.

Why don't you get back on topic? You've been outed and embarrassed. It'll all be over if you just get back on topic and gracefully accept your defeat or make further efforts to prove Bush is "above the law" with his "executive privilege" claims.

 

Stop whining.

I'm still waiting for you to get back on topic and show us more of how the President's claims of "executive privilege" place him "above the law" as you title to this thread claims.

See if you can stay on track this time.