It's getting darned depressing listening to the news these days. You can either listen to authoritarian media and get angry at all the things they refuse to cover, or you can listen to "left-wing" news and get angry about the things they are covering.
Today's unplesant revelation came in a broadcast of NPR's Fresh Air, who was interviewing Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage. He previously earned fame covering Bush's unprecedented use of "signing statements," which Bush believes allow him to creatively misinterpret or flat-out ignore laws Congress has passed. Savage now has a book out entitled Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy.
The little trick Savage details here is the use of the little-known Office of Legal Counsel. This is a wing of the DOJ that researches and writes legal opinions for the President, advising him/her on the legality of programs the President may wish to implement (such as torturing prisoners of war for information, or comprehensively wiretapping the entire US citizenry without a warrant or even probable cause). Such ideas are submitted to the OLC, who then research precedent and laws on the books and render an opinion.
Well, when Bush was elected installed in 2001, the OLC was stacked with legal "scholars" who were, to put it mildly, out of their tiny little minds. Hand-picked by authoritarian extremists who bristled at the limits Congress imposed on the Presidency following the Vietnam and Watergate disasters (*cough*Cheney*cough*), these new appointees were given affirmative instructions to roll back or circumvent those limits and, "Leave the office in better shape than when he came in."
To that end, the Office of Legal Counsel has been issuing opinions that are shared by virtually no other legal scholars in the country. The opinion that said torture was okay? That was OLC's work. The opinions that said the President can wiretap anyone he damn well pleases? OLC.
The legal dodge here is that, by consulting with the OLC, the Bush League can claim they weren't going off half-cocked on their own initiative, but that they can be said to have been, "acting in good faith." "Hey, we consulted with our lawyers, we asked for their expert opinion, and they said this was okay. How could we possibly have known something was wrong with it?"
This claim is, of course, fatuous on its face. However, not being a lawyer, I have no idea how much time and energy it will take to blast through this facade of, "good faith." While consulting with the Office of Legal Counsel may lend an appearance of, "good faith," the Office itself was clearly staffed in bad faith, and all opinions rendered thereafter must therefore be tainted. Whether Congress has any recourse here aside from impeachment is unclear.
It's beginning to look as if the corruption of the DOJ has been more complete than anyone initially feared.
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