Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree - from the Guardian

[scarletwoman]

You all really need to read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/trump-john-yoo-lawyer-torture-waterboarding
Julian Borger in Washington
Mon 20 Jul 2020

John Yoo wrote memo used to justify waterboarding
Trump keen to use executive orders and circumvent Congress

The Trump administration has been consulting the former government lawyer who wrote the legal justification for waterboarding on how the president might try to rule by decree.

<snip>

In a June article in the National Review, he wrote that a supreme court decision that blocked Trump’s attempt to repeal Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, known as Daca and established by executive order, meant Trump could do the same thing to achieve his policy goals.

<snip>

“Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency,” he said. In a telephone interview, he added: “According to the supreme court, the president can now choose to under-enforce the law in certain areas and it can’t be undone by his successor unless that successor goes through this onerous thing called the Administrative Procedure Act, which usually takes one to two years.”

Constitutional scholars have rejected Yoo’s arguments as ignoring limits on the executive powers of the president imposed by the founders, who were determined to prevent the rise of a tyrant.

Much more at link - I really urge you to read the whole thing in order to understand just how far trump may be willing to go to assume dictatorial powers.

[Mike 03]

1. I agree with you that this is an enormously troubling story.

This was posted a couple of days ago and I'm not sure the implications of this are sinking in with the MSM. Maybe I've just missed it, but I haven't heard it mentioned.

Then I began to think I was overreacting. This story scared me to death.

[scarletwoman]

5. I didn't see that it was posted earlier, although I guess it bears repeating.

There's an Opinion piece from yesterday in the Washington Post that discuses this story:

Trump wants to be king. Did John Yoo just hand him the crown?

Opinion by Ruth Marcus ~ Deputy editorial page editor
July 21, 2020

Presidents rely on John Yoo for legal advice at their peril. Ask George W. Bush, who used Yoo’s memos from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel as justification for his program of “enhanced interrogation.” The memos were later repudiated by Bush’s own Justice Department.

Now another president is poised to seize on Yoo’s work as justification for .?.?. well, God knows what. President Trump, who likes the lawyers who tell him what he can do, not the ones who instruct him what he can’t, has seized on Yoo’s contorted argument that the Trump administration’s loss at the Supreme Court in the “dreamers” immigration case is actually a win — albeit a misguided one — for presidential power. Yoo, now teaching law at Berkeley, can find presidential power anywhere, for anything. But this argument is a stretch even for Yoo.

Yoo’s argument, in National Review, goes like this: President Barack Obama lacked the legal authority to implement, by executive fiat, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to protect from deportation dreamers brought to the United States as children. The Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by the liberal justices, found that while Trump had the authority to revoke DACA, he hadn’t gone through the proper administrative procedures to do so lawfully. (my bold)

Thus, Yoo argues, “Suppose President Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly. He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws, and that a new ‘Trump permit’ would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions.”

<snip>

This is ridiculous. Yoo dismisses DACA as “illegal presidential action,” which is mighty rich coming from someone who concluded that the president, as chief executive, could not be bound by a criminal statute outlawing torture — indeed, could order the massacre of a village of civilians.

(lots more at the link, of course)

[Mike 03]

6. I'm grateful to you for posting it, for anyone who may not have seen it.

Threads rise and fall fast around here, and the MSM isn't covering it that I've seen.

The more exposure the better. I'm also interested in the reaction, because I can't tell why more people are not discussing it. Maybe there's some reason I shouldn't be so worried about it?

[scarletwoman]

8. Thanks! I'm with you, the lack of reaction is disconcerting.

Personally, I can't think of any reason to NOT be worried about it!

It is being discussed here and there, btw - check out this Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=john+yoo+trump&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS892US892&oq=john+yoo+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l2j46j0j46j0l2.8007j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[in2herbs]

2. Isn't Yoo a teacher at some CA university?? If so, it's time to pressure the U (or wherever he

works) to fire him.

[Mike 03]

3. Yes. U.C. Berkeley. nt

[in2herbs]

4. If we can't get him fired, perhaps there is a federal law that punishes him as an accessory to a

treasonous bastard?

I certainly hope that Ds don't "forgive and forget" the transgressions of the Rs this time.

[underpants]

7. So THIS is what he was talking about with the DACA ruling having to do with healthcare

F Yoo

[scarletwoman]

9. Yoo gave trump the rationalization for ruling solely by decree. (nt)

[Gothmog]

10. Hoo needs to be dis-barred

[LiberalFighter]

11. There are many in Trump's administration directly or indirectly that need to be called out.

Biden needs to establish a group to do this and make their findings public.