Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is unloading what he found after being granted access to various Bush Office Of Legal Counsel opinions. Every time you think you're hallucinating about the powers this president has accrued to himself, you come across a reality more surreal:
To give you an example of what I read, I have gotten three legal propositions from these OLC opinions declassified. Here they are, as accurately as my note taking could reproduce them from the classified documents. Listen for yourself. I will read all three, and then discuss each one.
1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.
2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President's authority under Article II.
3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President's legal determinations.
Richard Milhous Bush. And the evidence suggests Mukasey may have a bruising non-honeymoon as AG. I'm also hearing rumors that the obstruction of justice in the CIA tape=destruction case may be even more clear-cut than we previously thought.