Kayleigh McEnany Quotes
When the President acts, he must do so pursuant to constitutionally enumerated Article II powers or statutory power allocated to him by Congress.
McEnany, Kayleigh. "Trump's executive orders are firmly within his Article II powers." CNN, Cable News Network, 30 Jan. 2017.
The President had authorized the NSA to spy Americans who might have been suspected of being themselves or being in contact with terrorists without obtaining permission of a court including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) special court that had been established for these cases. Instead the administration argues that it was inherent in the powers of the Presidency in time of war.
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.
His role was the equivalent of the Mayor of Washington DC. Even though the Congress had generally been the most powerful branch of the government, public opinion on this was beginning to shift at the turn of the 20th century.
Marshall is famous for, as Chief Justice, establishing the principle that the Judiciary can override Congress and the Executive in determining Constitutionality. However, as this quotation illustrates this principle had been discussed in open debate on the ratification of the Constitution. It was not simply a grab for power by a Chief justice; he uttered this quotation long before he ever suspected he would be a judge but actually spent much of his career in the executive and legislative branch of government.
In 1953 the Senator had proposed a Constitutional amendment that would severely curtail the treaty making powers of the President. President Eisenhower actively opposed Bricker and the right wing of his own party. The Senator was outraged. Despite Bricker’s complaining, the public and the Congress sided with the President.
Kayleigh McEnany is an American conservative political commentator and author who served as the 33rd White House press secretary for the Trump administration from April 2020 to January 2021.
