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Senator Reveals Secret Bush Legal Opinions
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of CBS News
Posted: January 9th, 2009
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/07/politics/main35914...
A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee said ... President Bush is standing by "feverish legal theories" to justify actions which are unconstitutional. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., made the comments on the Senate floor during debate. Whitehouse said that ... he had examined "highly classified secret legal opinions" issued by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel [OLC]. Whitehouse recounted that, "Sitting in that secure room, as a lawyer, as a former U.S. Attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Islands Governor, and State Attorney General, I was increasingly dismayed and amazed as I read on." Whitehouse related three OLC legal opinions which he got declassified: "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."; ... "The President ... can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the Presidents authority"; [and] "The Department of Justice is bound by the Presidents legal determinations." "Imagine a general counsel to a major U.S. corporation telling his board of directors, 'In this company the counsels office is bound by the CEOs legal determinations,'" Whitehouse said. "The board ought to throw that lawyer out - its malpractice, probably even unethical." We are a nation of laws, not of men. This nation was founded in rejection of the royalist principles that ... 'The King can do no wrong'."
Note: To hear the revealing Senate speech on this vital topic by Senator Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, click here. For Whitehouse's comments on this topic on his Senate website, click here.
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