In a New York Times op-ed today, John Yoo wrote the following words: “even I have grave concerns about Mr. Trump’s uses of presidential power.”
That should get your attention, since Yoo, a fancy law professor at Berkeley, is best known for authoring much of the legal advice claiming the U.S. could legally engage in torture when he served in George W. Bush’s Justice Department.
In fact, Yoo believed this so fervently that in 2005 he said that a president can torture children if necessary, and there’s nothing that Congress or international law can do to stop him.
Yoo explained his perspective during a debate with Doug Cassel, then the director of Notre Dame Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights:
CASSEL: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles 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.
You can listen to the audio of Yoo making that case here:
Yoo’s legal reasoning, as he (together with his superior Jay Bybee, who’s now a federal judge) advised the Bush White House, is that “the Department of Justice could not enforce Section 2340A [the federal probation against torture] against federal officials acting pursuant to the President’s constitutional authority to wage a military campaign.” In other words, the president can’t crush a 6-year-old boy’s testicles for fun, but if he thinks some child-testicle-crushing is needed to win the war, it’s totally constitutional.
The good news for Trump is that Yoo doesn’t express any concerns about Trump’s actions regarding foreign policy. Moreover, his qualms about Trump’s domestic actions are fairly mild. Yoo feels that Trump can’t pull us out of NAFTA, because that was enacted by Congress, and he can’t put a tariff on Mexican imports by himself. But he does think Trump can legally halt immigration from any countries he wants, although he believes Trump should be sure no one talks about it in public as a “Muslim ban.”
In the end, Yoo’s main quarrel with Trump is that Yoo thinks presidents can go totally hog-wild in foreign policy but should cooperate with Congress domestically — whereas Trump believes he can do whatever he wants overseas and at home. This troubles Yoo, because it could lead to Trump “dissipating his political capital and haphazardly wasting the executive’s powers” to really give foreigners the business.
Top photo: John Yoo in the law library at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif. on Feb. 9, 2009.
Any comments by terrorist-enabling Yoo should be restricted to Fox and Breitbart. The smell of that little slimy shit stinks up this site.
The Politics of the Possible: 150 Federal Prosecutors Denounce Trumps Muslim Ban
Stingrays Provide FBI NSA Informal Federal “Oversight” for members of the Congressional Committees Providing Formal Oversight of the FBI NSA , Hampton Homeowners, Gun Owners, Anti War Activists and Intercept readers.
“A New Frontier in Police Surveillance”
Featuring Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Adam Bates, Policy Analyst, Cato Institute; moderated by Julian Sanchez, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute.
https://www.cato.org/events/stingrays-new-frontier-police-surveillance
All I can say is: Fuck John Yoo.!
Please do us all a favor and crawl back underneath whence you came. We’ve heard it all before from you.
Even he?
That specious argument!
Scary that you would give him even a moment.
He is part of the organized crime running this country from behind the scenes.
Even he? Might as well say, “Even Hitler thinks Trump went too far.”
Gross!
This article really grabbed me by the balls. And I am not sure if that’s fair, considering grabbing women ‘by the pussy’ isn’t fair game anymore, especially amongst the left thinkers and neo-con artists.
I think the solution might to get all of the people who hate genitals out of the room for a minute, and the rest of us grownups can discuss foreplay, and being nice to each others body parts,instead of maiming them and talking about them as if they are objects of pain.
You know, like the kids did back in the 60’s, when they ended an endless war for the first time ever.
Make love, not war? That’s un-American, according to everyone who ever cried “rapeocaust!!!!!” ever.
Jon Schwarz, I take issue with your use of John Yoo as a reliable authority on which to base opinion. John Yoo, that despicable lackey of corruption who authored the legal opinion excusing torture, has continually sought to drag his name out of the slime into which it deservedly sank. By his actions Yoo forever besmirched the reputation of the United States and made all claim to moral pretense by the present American State null and void. The offal of his legalese has been splattered on and soiled all Americans alike. Yoo has never wavered on his attempt to justify his opinions that underwrote torture as an acceptable act. In a further blow to human decency, Yoo was then elevated to the level of professor at the U. of C. Law School at Berkeley. In the past I wrote letters to the dean of the Law School at Berkeley and the President of that University begging them to cleanse their institution from his further influence on the minds of lawyers in training. Still, Yoo desperately tries to shed the stench of his own corruption by claiming others are more evil than he. Yoo’s logic is that same process by which Nazis tried to excuse their culpability and participation in heinous acts. In so doing, Yoo tries to portray the other “pot” (Trump) as “blacker” than himself. Yoo’s entire career has been built upon a foundation of doublespeak, deception and duplicity. To tacitly “rehabilitate” Yoo as the lesser of two evils is both unconscionable and stupid – you, my dear sir, are playing a fool’s card!
I don’t think Jon is raising Yoo as a moral arbiter, but extending the yardstick downward to the nadir. If Satan says that your president is evil, then it’s a sign that maybe he is.
Look at it this way: if the ghost of Hans Frank were to appear and say he had “grave concerns” about Donald, then we should take it as an augury.
I’m sure Jon thanks you for speaking on behalf of his questionable selection of “champtions.” But you convolute my point. Let me simplify. It’s a fools errand to cite the corrupt in an effort to condemn corruption.
Yoo’s a war criminal.
Why bother with torture when you can legally drone ? Survivors of torture ( McCain ?) will promote death and destruction the rest of their lives…..
One of’em could author a book on DIVORCE! How to put the screws to your mate, literally and legally!
Wow, what a premise! So a known supporter of child-torture opposes Trump, and this constitutes condemnatory evidence against … um … Trump. One could just as easily write an article, “White supremacists on ‘Stormfront’ believe in racial supremacism and fascism. Even they think Obama was a disaster!”
And torture was OK before…? Uh….
Writing a legal opinion without any basis in law?.? Torture has been out-lawed since the inquisition – and that is not a legal opinion – that is a world consensus…. YOU can buy any opinion you want in law it is called forum shopping. . .
A legal memo contrary to law. He writes an excuse to a Federal law — 18 USC § 2340A — which was plain on its face as a criminal matter, on the basis that an opinion by one lawyer can overturn any court rulings, criminal and int’l law on the subject, and on the premise that the Commander in Chief law justifies it and ignores the Youngstown ruling to the contrary. That’s somewhere between malpractice and a war crime in its own right (writing a memo enabling torture is prosecutable).
It’s not forum shopping inasmuch as the torturers haven’t gone near The Hague as yet, but the ICC may come shopping for them.
coram noblis. If the ICC come shopping they will get a surprise “U.S. President George Bush today signed into law the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002, which is intended to intimidate countries that ratify the treaty for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague. This provision, dubbed the “Hague invasion clause,” has caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies around the world, particularly in the Netherlands. https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-becomes-law
Let’s see. . . a US president sends SEAL Team 6 to snatch John Yoo from one of the 12 ICC cells at the prison in Scheveningen, no doubt killing a few guards and a couple of curious bystanders in the street outside.
Well, that would certainly be another big step toward the end of the American role as “leader of the free world.” So, it wouldn’t be all bad, but I’d rather let Yoo stay over there.
I’m aware of the ASPA and think it curious, if, say, John Yoo or Donald Rumsfeld were to get arrested in some European airport and sent to The Hague on an outstanding arrest warrant. The ICC has an agreement with The Netherlands for them to provide security for the court, so an attack on the courthouse would mean a firefight with Dutch forces, which means a fight with a NATO member. At that point things start getting interesting.
Alternatively, the US could contest the court’s jurisdiction over the accused or its validity. Unfortunately, the Pinochet extradition case is now customary law and it would get complicated.
The CIA has been torturing people in Third World countries since the last 50 or 60 years. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Central America, Vietnam, etcccc… the list is very, very, very long. This not is nothing new
Fully agree. The only thing new is that these “scholars” are out in the open justifying these abhorrent policies.
Yoo should be in prison.
I think it’s pretty clear that John Yoo is a supporter of the Clinton-Bush-Obama neoliberal/neocon foreign policy agenda. And I think the record is that Yoo’s support for Clinton over Trump was directly related to Clinton’s foreign policy agenda, which was much closer to Bush’s. See what he actually said:
“The court of public opinion will make the final judgment. The people, not the prosecutors, should decide whether Hillary broke the law.” – John Yoo, National Review, July 6, 2016
“UC Berkeley’s John Yoo, perhaps best known as the author of the Bush/Cheney “torture memos,” co-wrote an L.A. Times op-ed yesterday in which he rejected the thesis. As Yoo and George Mason University’s Jeremy Rabkin argued, the damage Trump would do to American foreign policy outweighs potential conservative gains in the judiciary.” – Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Aug 18 2016
“For John Yoo, the conservative legal scholar and former Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, Trump “reminds me a lot of early Mussolini. .?.?. Very, disturbingly similar.” – Washington Post, Oct 12, 2016
Yes, the neoliberals (including those writing for the Intercept) don’t like Trump – but I suspect they dislike real progressives like Bernie Sanders even more, as Sanders supporters could boot them out of power in the Democratic Party. Hence the Intercept’s refusal to cover the struggle for control of the DNC, correct? There has been some coverage of that story, just not here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry7dzLb_r6Q
DNC Chair Race update, TYT
The 2-faced dems are scared witless that their support for unbanning the ban will vaporise in the face of their fear of Keith Ellison.
And it was John Yoo who wrote the opinions for the George W. Bush administration that allowed activity in multiple areas that proved to be illegal and unethical. Glenn Greenwald writes an excellent book about this something about Patriots.
It is disgraceful that any American law school is administered by people who would hire this person.
John Yoo, the despicable abuser of the US Constitution, occupies a position of Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. This is that he same UC Berkeley that recently had a bloody riot because some pro-Trump schmuck decided to give a talk on the US Berkeley campus.
Robert Reich, a colleague of John Yoo at the UC Berkeley sees nothing wrong in Yoo’s legal opinions. But Reich is hysterical about Trump because Trump “wants control”: http://www.truthdig.com/report/ item/these_are_the_last_bastions_of_resistance_to_donald_trump_20170207
Where Reich has been when his beloved Obama was breaking the US Constitution with the extra-judicial killings, tortures, black sites, and illegal “humanitarian” interventions in the Middle East, completed with the weaponization of “moderate” terrorists both in the Middle East (Ql Qaeda) and in Ukraine (neo-Nazis)? The pathetic “progressives” are lost in their own deceptions. Look at the pink-pussies imbeciles that failed to notice the hundreds of thousands of dead women and children in the Middle East, courtesy Obama-Clinton team, but came to DC with demands for some “women’s rights” from Trumps, while being dressed as vaginas. Do these lunatics have children to shame them for indecency?
aint that the truth
i was actually shocked to see that he was even employed
cannot imagine what he woul do in private practices – divorces? hate your hubby? how bad do you hate him? wanna know where he’s hiding his money?
usa_naziland; torture children…my god I had no idea that these sick americunts would stoop into satanic death-culture practices,,..
precisely correct.
This is what happens to humans who are or become untethered to the entitlement to life support. Jesus advocated for life liberty and health for happiness.
Please don’t fall into the right’s habitual denigration of the academy. I’m not sure why Yoo’s professorship needs to be qualified as “fancy.” There’s plenty to dislike there without needing to sneer at the mere fact that he holds an academic position. In the end this helps the right’s agenda of undermining institutions that might offer critiques or pose a threat to their agenda.
They undermine themselves by hiring scum like Yoo. And he’s far from the only example.
And Stanford gave a sinecure to the war criminal Condi Rice.
“Condoleezza Rice Advocated and Lied for the Illegal War on Iraq: Aggressive War Violates International Law
As the Nuremberg tribunal declared, “To initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” The US-led invasion of Iraq, therefore, is not to be regarded as a mistake, or a foreign policy blunder. It is to be regarded as a crime against humanity, of the worst possible sort.
Rice’s Warmongering and Lies: As National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice was one of the “five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping the public opinion on Iraq.” She was among the top officials promoting, planning, and eventually perpetrating the war. “
disappointing you are giving this war criminal any airtime.
“In other words, the president can’t crush a 6-year-old boy’s testicles for fun, but if he thinks some child-testicle-crushing is needed to win the war, it’s totally constitutional.”
Win the war? On terror? Hahahahahaha.. Next thing you know it’ll be totally constitutional for the FBI to entrap young men in FBI created terror plots, incinerate thousands of innocent foreigners and American citizens via Hellfire missiles, lie our way into wars of aggression, torture folks till they’re dead, create the most despotic domestic surveillance state in the history of the planet, prosecute whistle blowers with impunity, and place certifiable sociopaths in the White House by virtue of 3mil votes that didn’t count.. .. er… wait…
The ghosts of the Framers must be banging their heads against the wall
Meanwhile, I’m praying that perineal abscess between Yoo’s ears quits oozing pus out of his mouth soon. The stench is overwhelming the planet, notwithstanding the cost of a continuous Hazmat team to clean up his slime trail.
Nice post! Sensually evocative!
You must be really good patriot…..
The way the Republicans – this bunch of war-criminals – like them the most.
Edward Snowden: Don’t fear Trump, fear the surveillance state.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-google-microsoft-pile-in-97-us-tech-firms-file-brief-against-trumps-travel-ban
It doesn’t matter who is in charge, the surveillance state gets worse. Stop waiting for a solution and start protecting your privacy. https://vpnreporter.com/simple-privacy-guide/
nevertheless, l’il johnny woo is certifiable.
an overcompensating underachiever.
a victim of a p’o’d not wanna be a lesser wanna be a more’er.
a groupee wanting to stand as an individual.
who hasnt understood that the tempatation of groupee power has a price, the relinquishment and sacrifice of individualism.
this is an achilles heel of America.
It was the unofficial governmental decree via memo used by Yoo/Cheney/Bush that sets up the authoritarian Trump.
When Yoo’s memo’s were pushed as legal documents without opposition we knew the regular rule of law no longer existed.
The two tiered “system of justice” the founding fathers feared is now firmly in place.
No one in America deserves deportation more that John Yoo — right after he is waterboarded 87 times.
Yoo is a hack, and it’s a sure sign of the times that he’s been teaching young people about the law for the past few years. In a sane culture with a future, he would have wound up in prison.
” In a sane culture with a future, he would have wound up in prison.”
No, he would have been hung on live TV.
WAIT a minute. Berkeley? Berkeley??? You’re telling me that the crew of hyper-liberal stargazers who smashed campus buildings and set fires, or at least stood around cheering as imported “anarchists” did… this same crew has been meekly wandering from class to class for years while the architect of George Bush’s torture program gave students his legal advice next door???
Jesus wept.
One question mark gets it done, son. Calm down.
actually there are not enough question marks in the world.
He was teaching constitutional law at UCB’s Boalt Hall, which is sort of like Hannibal Lecter teaching culinary arts there.
Hey, they’re just trying to live up to their motto: Fiat lux.
They have light in interrogation rooms, right?
Fiat lux? Isn’t Benito Mussolini here to tell us which model year the Fiat Lux is?
No, they ran out of space writing the motto. In reality the motto of the UCB law school is fiat lux obscuritas.
Alongside Mr. Bernbart?
…and right there in plain audible English,
the crossroads of blind ambition and humanity.
I think it’s background and experience which becomes a learned sociopathic behavior.
The Yoo’s of the world have traded much for self comfort and access.
Washington v. Trump: Oral arguments on the government’s appeal of the District Court order to be heard by the 9th Circuit via telephone at 3 p.m. PST, tomorrow.
The panel consists of Canby, Clifton, and Friedland.
Hitler also expressed his concerns about soviet children suffering under Stalin. So what?
In fact Yoo is more concerned about his future paycheck under Trump than how Trump will be torturing children, Yoo style or Yahoo style or free american style used on Indians. Disgusting.
I guess they pay per page at TIC.
Yep. Here’s to today’s version of gangrenous sepsis in delusive certainty…
Wouldn’t a non-partisan media have about an equal amount of pro-trump articles? Obviously, The Intercept is a dis-info organ for the Globalists, particularly George Soros.
Admit it, The Intercept is not about the whole Truth, just those cherry picked facts make a good propaganda article.
The Intercept has never tried to be non-partisan. It strives to print the truth (and backs it up) wherever that may lie on the partisan divide. It’s much more successful than most news sources.
Wrong. A non-partisan, independent news outlet should ideally be adversarial to power, regardless of who is in power.
Good research and reporting is no more connected to your definition of “non-partisan” than it is to partisan. What you’re saying is no different than Fox News infamous label of “Fair and Balanced” or the dishonest sycophantic or stenography reporting commonly referred to as “Telling both sides,” no matter if one side is truth and the other side is the Kellyanne Conway Bowling Green Massacre.
I’ve seen Glenn on twitter over the last couple of days arguing with people about something Trump said that Glenn factually agrees with, while others can’t bring themselves to agree with it or even to be honest about what the real issue is regarding what Trump said. That should be the honest reporting you’re alluding to, but it isn’t. You’re expecting or pretending to expect that The Intercept make up stories out of whole cloth that are positive about Trump or his administration. You’re claiming that you’d like to see The Intercept spin straw into gold; no matter how impractical that would be and what a waste of time and energy that would be, and also a gross disservice to their readers.
Seriously?!
Who gives a flying Fuck what Yoo thinks?
That ^
John Yoo worried about presidential power when the wrong person has it. Otherwise, bring on the Baby’s First Thumbscrews!
While it’s clear Jon’s point was that even someone with, ah… how to say this, the severely challenged scruples as Yoo is worried about our glorious new leader, the argument is completely undermined by the fact that Yoo has zero, or even negative, credibility.
Yoo himself argued in favor of grand executive powers, and like many before him apparently didn’t have sufficient intellect to consider that some day those powers might be in the hands of someone he didn’t side with, control, or might even be dangerous to the Republic. Even if I agree with any of his assesment regarding Trump, I frankly don’t care what Yoo “thinks”. He owes the Republic an apology.
quote”He owes the Republic an apology.”unquote
No, he owes the world a suicide.
There is no hope for a country which allows this evil man to live freely, give opinions and teach law!!! It is simply sick.
Buried below is a link to the 9th Circuit’s dedicated website for the docs in Washington v. Trump. So:
Washington v. Trump
So far, the most ambitious filing is the Korematsu Center’s amicus brief. It’s an effort to blast the whole notion of the plenary power to bits, with citations including Dred Scott, Plessy, Chinese Exclusion Act, Brown, etc.
The Korematsu Center’s brief has some powerful stuff.
Some other cases worth noting:
– Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 (1896), which distinguished between immigration enforcement and criminal proceeding against aliens, that is, a right to due process regardless of nationality.
– Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886), where laws that are facially race-neutral that are aimed at a particular race are a breach of the 14th Amendment.
– Frank Murphy’s dissent in Korematsu itself. He may very well have coined the word “racism.” Robert Jackson’s dissent in the same case is also worthwhile for future litigation along this line.
Thanks. I’m not familiar with Wong Wing or Yick Wo. I’ll read them.
The States’ response in this case (looks pretty tight to this amateur) cites Murphy’s Korematsu dissent. When dissenting opinions are the ones everyone looks to, the original ruling is well and truly discredited, even if not (yet) reversed.
Which reminds me, just 2-3 months ago:
Even Scalia thought Korematsu was horrible case law. It’s worth noting that it and the earlier Hirabayashi cases were partly discredited on a writ of (cough) coram nobis, Hirabayashi v. U.S., 828 F.2d 591 (9th Cir., 1987). Government’s assertions of national security at time of Hirabayashi and Korematsu arguments here found in 1987 to be selective and misleading. “The Court’s divided opinions in Korematsu demonstrate beyond question the importance which the Justices in Korematsu and Hirabayashi placed upon the position of the government that there was a perceived military necessity, despite contrary arguments of the defendants in those cases.” In fact, DOJ misled the 1944 Court about the racist origin of the relocation order.
So, the Korematsu dissents (Murphy, Jackson, JJ.) and the coram nobis action should serve Plaintiffs well if Donald tries something and we go to court. Donald’s transition team was only very shallowly correct about Korematsu’s validity. It is a precedent, but with a big “kick me” sign on it.
john yoo is certifiable.
Overcompensating underachieving cowardly gotta-be-perfect liars gravitate toward positions of power and immunity in government. The US gov of dumb&dumbers who run the gov all together comprise the largest institution for the criminally insane on the planet.
Defend torture. Defend NAFTA. From just a quick search, NAFTA is clear that a country can withdraw, but who in the United States has the power to unilaterally withdraw seems to be an open question. NAFTA is not a treaty as defined by the constitution but rather a a congressional-executive agreement (CEA). My guess is that if Trump withdrew the US from NAFTA, he would be sued.
Promoting torture seems to be a path to success in academia. The University of California has Yoo as a distinguished faculty member at the law school on its flagship campus, and Janet Napolitano (formerly of Homeland Security) as its chancellor. Robert Gates went from being CIA director to being president of Texas A&M University to being Secretary of Defense for Bush and Obama. Alan Dershowitz, who has some sort of distinguished faculty chair at Harvard Law School, wrote a book in praise of torture and calling for its legalization. David Petraeus was initially going to be paid $200,000 to teach just one course at the City University of New York, where non-torture promoters don’t get much more than $3,000 for the same thing. As a result of student protests, Petraeus’s salary was later reduced. The student protesters were also beaten with “batons” and charged with various crimes.
“Alan Dershowitz, who has some sort of distinguished faculty chair at Harvard Law School, wrote a book in praise of torture and calling for its legalization.”
shorter Dershowitz:
Israel does it; why haven’t we made America pass a law to legalize it here too?
This country has even forgotten what a “moral compass” is. Our founders must be spinning as we speak.
The founders that owned slaves are not spinning, they are flapping.
Oh, that’s a good rule. I see what they mean by “beacon of freedom and democracy.”
Do we really need to hear an opinion of someone who thinks crushing children’s testicles can be justified??? What’s next….”Cannibals from Papua New Guinea on Trump” …Seriously!
This Yoo guy is just crazy, I am surprised he is not a neo-con.
dont be surprised, he is a neo-con.
For God’s sake, what kind of a monster is that? His boss, who likes to grab something, should have grabbed and squeezed his balls to see if he thought it was good. Each one is the worst.
In a really just world, Yoo would be disbarred for life. he should then be tried as a war criminal and locked up for life. Instead, the corporate media gives him the time of day. Why?
Is it because of his power?
Is it because cable news bookers think we must have an anti-torture guy and a pro torture guy. Otherwise my ass will be fired?
is it because these mega media corporate presidents secretly like torture as well?
If Yoo really believes torture is okay, he should volunteer to have his testicles crushed on live prime time TV.
Yep. That those sociopaths Yoo and Bybee are still members of the US legal profession in good standing, is a huge huge stain on the US legal profession.
That the citizens of California permit their tax dollars to pay Yoo’s salary is also completely beyond me, and I could give a fuck about Yoo’s tenure or academic freedom, which has nothing to do with shielding a war criminal from the consequences of his crimes.
That Bybee sits on the federal bench in my circuit turns my stomach and I hope none of my cases ever have to go before him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make a motion to have him recused for his participation in condoning torture, and short of some sort of financial conflict of interest being present with one of the parties in a case before him there is no other way to get an appellate judge recused that I’m aware of.
Sad. Yoo and Bybee are prime examples of exactly how screwed up, immoral and hypocritical this nation is in many ways.
Or that someone like Henry Kissinger is venerated as some sort of elder statesman. That Hillary and Bill Clinton consider him a friend is one of the many reasons I would never have voted for her in the first instance. That was a big red line in the sand for me and should have been for any human being.
there’s something worth changing, the bar for the Bar.
It’s interesting that this memorandum (see hyperlink), resting its premise on the president’s Art. II commander-in-chief power, failed to mention the major case on the subject, Youngstown Sheet & Tube. Failing to cite it to a client, even as contrary law to be worked around, is arguably malpractice.
And Youngstown was about whether the President could extend wartime powers to the territory of the United States, in this case, seizure of steel mills because of the war in Korea, so it’s a bit strange to argue the President’s wartime powers overseas don’t apply at home — especially given the world-wide reach of the Sept. 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
Strange.
Addendum:
A list of the various memoranda, not just the central August 1, 2002 memo.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/
FYI for folks not familiar with the Steel Seizure case, it was decided 6-3 , with Hugo Black writing for the Court and every one of the five concurring justices writing a separate concurring opinion. Jackson’s is the one considered most definitive wrt the president’s Art. II powers. Wikipedia has a good entry on this one.
For everyone: the Ninth Circuit has set up a dedicated website for the documents in this case.
Finally: When California secedes, we’re going to promptly deport John Yoo.
If California secedes, John Yoo and Jay Bybee might find themselves on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, on capital charges.
I’d hate to be compelled to reconsider my lifelong opposition to capital punishment, but. . .
It’s worth remembering that at Nuremberg, the US tried officials like Keitel, Jodl, Frick and Hans Frank for issuing memoranda like this. They didn’t kill anybody personally, just sat at desks and signed things like the Commando Order, but that still got them hanged.
We should oppose capital punishment in most cases, given that it almost always fall on the poorest and least mentally-apt — “those without the capital get the punishment”, as it goes. But great war crimes trials like Tokyo or Nuremberg had defendants who had been admirals, generals, cabinet officers, corporate officers, great judges and lawyers, people who had the exquisite knowledge to form criminal intent, and the power to ruin millions of lives. So, yes, maybe the gallows comes into the picture.
Why should one ever believe any word of anyone who thinks that torturing children by US presidents is okay? Should such a person not be shunned for all humanity?
But I get the point. Because this person has “grave concerns” about Donald Trump, shows that somewhere inside of him there is something “good”.
The Intercept’s morality is therefore very clear: as long as one is against Trump, everything one ever said or did, and that includes the opinion that US presidents are allowed to torture children, you cannot be a bad guy.
No, it may be more a comparison. If Satan thinks your president is evil …
That doesn’t excuse Yoo, the memoranda he authored were war crimes in their own right, and potentially are evidence for some future prosecution. I see nothing in this article that finds him praiseworthy.
In other words, you came here…yesterday.
Always a big mistake to end your reading of an article before reading even beyond the title or introduction. Your completely ignorant take on “The Intercept’s morality” is based entirely on your completely ignorant take on the article, which you didn’t read.
And John Yoo, of course, is a psychopath. As is DT.
But the US isn’t at war is it?
And last sentence: what is “the business”?
Some of the justices in the Steel Seizure case reminded the government, when it cited wartime powers at oral argument, that Congress had not declared war. But that was during the first undeclared war after WWII. The US has been fighting wars without declaration ever since, and the idea that Congress actually has to declare war has become quaint. ;^(
To “give someone the business” is an American idiomatic expression that may mean, among other things, to treat that someone harshly.
Footnote: the Court, as far back as the undeclared naval war with France, recognized that non-declaratory war could exist. Bas v. Tingy, 4 U.S. (7 Dall.) 37 (1800).
Doesn’t matter if the U.S. is formally at war, although the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which had a worldwide and unlimited timeline, is still in force. There’s also this, from Robert Jackson, as to war de facto being sufficient:
As for “the business,” it’s an American idiom similar to that which a U.S. judge might tell a defendant, “…and may God have mercy on your soul.”
It would seem that the power to declare war is really just the power to define the term “war”, so if PFC Santiago shoots a Cuban is that the start of war or just a shooting incident. Only Congress can call that war or ignore calling it anything; the President can’t say.
AUMF == war
Unlimited time for AUMF seems a violation: doesn’t or wouldn’t or shouldn’t funding limits effectively force them to review every two years?
btw: thanks to you both for replying to my questions!
Kind regards.