She’s Kidding, Right?
That was my reaction in reading Charles Hurt’s article in this morning’s Washington Times. Here’s the quote that caused that reaction:
In an interview yesterday, Miss Gorelick acknowledged her testimony before Congress but said it pertained to presidential authority prior to 1994, when Congress expanded FISA laws. Left unanswered, she said, is whether that congressional action trumped the president’s “inherent authority.” “The Clinton administration did not take a position on that,” she said.
Does Ms. Gorelick expect us to buy that line? Everyone and their mother knows that legislation, no matter how popular it is, can limit the Constitutional powers of the President. Hugh Hewitt teaches ConLaw at Chatman University. He covered this issue on either Monday’s or Tuesday’s program. What Hugh essentially said is that Rule 1 is that Constitutional authority trumps legislative restrictions on Constitutional authority.
Here’s some other highlights from Hurt’s story:
“The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general,” Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick said in 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
I thought it was just President Bush, in his lust for power, that would use such a scurrilous tactic. Say it ain’t so. If you took Ms. Gorelick at her word, which is dangerous of any Clinton administration official, you’d think that this authority was well-established.
One of the most famous examples of warrantless searches in recent years was the investigation of CIA official Aldrich H. Ames, who ultimately pleaded guilty to spying for the former Soviet Union. That case was largely built upon secret searches of Ames’ home and office in 1993, conducted without federal warrants.
Didn’t the NY Times just run an article that painted the picture that President Bush was as evil as the devil himself because he authorized the use of warrantless wiretaps? How can they paint that picture without even a mention of the Aldrich Ames case during the Clinton administration?
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing
December 22nd, 2005 at 8:15 pm
the republicans, a party infected by greed
The Tax Policy Center, run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, has concluded that the bottom 80 percent of households would receive 15.8 percent of the House tax cuts’ benefit. The top 20 percent would receive 84.2 percent of the benefit. Households earning more than $1 million a year would get 40 percent of the tax cuts, or an average reduction of nearly $51,000.
The tax measure’s cost would more than offset the savings in a tough budget approved by the House last month, which would trim federal spending by $50 billion over five years by imposing new fees on Medicaid recipients, squeezing student lenders, cutting federal child-support enforcement and paring the food stamp rolls.