Jay S. Bybee Quotes
The Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield
Bybee, then and Assistant Attorney General, took the legal position that the President could order the torture of enemy combatants regardless of Congressional laws prohibiting torture. Two years later the memo’s recipient, Alberto Gonzalez, in his confirmation hearings as Attorney General, repudiated the memo, then stating that the President was not above the law and had to obey the laws of Congress that apply to the military.
Jay S. Bybee, Federal Appellate Judge, Assistant Attorney General (Republican), Legal Memo to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, August 1, 2002
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
When the Senate was debating the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which would empower the President to take "all necessary measures" to repel any armed attack on U. S. forces, Senator Morse was one of only two Senators opposing the resolution:
President George W. Bush had ordered NSA agents to bug the phones and email of American citizens who might have been talking with an overseas party or e-mailing them out of the country. The administration thought that American citizens might be part of terrorist sleeper cells or unwittingly were aiding terrorists. The law prohibited such activity—where American citizens were involved—without getting a court order. However, the President claimed that he had the inherent power as commander in chief of exempting the court requirement. Others maintained that even the President is not above the law. What was the big puzzle was that there was a secret court Congress had established just for such cases, but the administration instead decided to bypass the court.
This notion seems to have first been expressed by Edward S. Corwin in 1940
Alberto Gonzalez, White House Counsel and later Attorney General who was forced to resign and David S. Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, had come up with a novel view of the powers of the presidency. They argued that since the President is the Commander in Chief, in a war situation or intelligence gathering thereto, has the Constitutional responsibility for that function, he need not obey any laws of Congress as in the conduct of the war Congress would be impinging on the Constitutional separation of powers which itself was prohibited by the Constitution. The argument did not find any significant legal support but for a while the George W. Bush White House behaved as if this were the law, despite the fact that even in the American Revolution and the War of 1812 Congress passed laws regulating the conduct of the armed forces as is provided for in other parts of the Constitution. Yet even Goldsmith would allow the President some powers that many think are unconstitutional and/or belong to Congress. See {32436}.
President Abraham Lincoln had pocket vetoed his own party's reconstruction bill in the midst of an election year.
Jay Scott Bybee is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has published numerous articles in law journals and has taught as a Senior Fellow in Constitutional Law at William S. Boyd School of Law. His primary research interests are in constitutional and administrative law.
