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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, March 05, 2010 7:56 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Why Leahy Is Afraid to Subpoena Yoo</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></FONT><BR>
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<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 22pt" size=6><B>Why Leahy Is Afraid to Subpoena
Yoo</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt" size=4>by David
Swanson</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt" size=4><A
href="http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/" target=_blank>After Downing Street</A>
- 2010-02-25</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in"
align=justify><BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>We're about
to witness the pretense of war lawyer hearings without the war lawyers (commonly
known as torture lawyers by those willing to ignore their role in "legalizing"
aggressive war). This may highlight for many observers the little-known
fact that Congress no longer has the power of subpoena.<BR><BR>During 2007-2008
Democratic congressional committees subpoenaed dozens of Bush officials, who
simply refused to comply. Although any committee has the undisputed power
to use the Capitol Police to enforce its subpoenas, none did. They asked
the Bush Justice Department to do it. They sued the Bush Justice
Department in court. But, with the exception of a weird deal for partial
and secret compliance by Karl Rove in 2009, not a single one of the scofflaws
has been compelled to show up.<BR><BR>During 2009-2010 none of the subpoenaed
officials have been re-subpoenaed. When torture memos were made public in
April 2009, Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
asked memo author Jay Bybee to testify, and Bybee declined. Leahy did not
issue a subpoena. Congressman John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary
Committee, in 2009 and 2010 has impeached a judge for groping and another for
petty corruption, but has not so much as asked Bybee (or Yoo) to
appear.<BR><BR>The new Justice Department, equal to the last in its subservience
to the White House, will no more enforce subpoenas for congressional committees
than the last one would. None of the committees have sprouted testicles,
and are apparently afraid that John Yoo would crush them if they did. So,
the Capitol Police have not been asked to pick any witnesses up. And the
power of congressional subpoena has been laid to rest in the receding history of
our free republic. And nobody has even noticed.<BR><BR>Of course, there
will be occasions when the president approves of congress subpoenaing a
witness. Perhaps some committee will find the courage to go after steroid
use in another sport, for example. Maybe the oversight committee will
decide to look into excessive activism by peace groups. But when it comes
to using the power of subpoena against members or former members of the
so-called executive branch, the only chance of revival will be a division of
powers between the two main institutions of our government, the Democratic and
Republican parties, and in fact -- given the bottomless timidity of
congressional Democrats -- it will require a Republican congress. Thus the
only hope of rolling back any presidential power, will be for a Republican
congress to oppose a Democratic president strongly enough to neglect its
principled concern for shifting all power permanently to the
presidency.<BR><BR>In the meantime, we'll be treated to hearings on people's
crimes without the presence of those people. What fun to question John Yoo
and Jay Bybee without them in the room. How much more comfortable and
reassuring not to have to face such dreadful enemies. How responsible to
leave it to the citizen disrupters of book tour events and appeals court
proceedings to question these national traitors. <BR><BR>And along with
the power of subpoena, the power of impeachment must die as well. How
could the House Judiciary Committee impeach Mr. Bybee, if it wanted to, given
its inability to subpoena him? <BR><BR>And with the power of impeachment,
the power of representative government must die as well. How can our
representatives be compelled to represent us if they have no power to restrain
the secondary (executive and judicial) branches' abuses of power?<BR><BR>Acting
Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler will fill in for Yoo and Bybee at Leahy's
hearing on Friday. I can imagine how this will go:<BR><BR>"When John Yoo
says that a president can crush testicles, massacre villages, and nuke cities,
Mr. Grindler, are there limits to that? Would a president have to stop
after eight cities? Nine cities? Where's the line, if there is
one?"<BR><BR>"I don't know," Senator. "I imagine you'd have to ask
Professor Yoo. But to do that you'd need to stop being too chickenshit to
enforce your own subpoenas, since we're not going to help you. We
encourage you instead to go dick cheney yourself. With all due respect,
sir."<BR><BR>"Understood, Acting Deputy Attorney General, but let me follow up
if you don't mind with this question. If Mr. Yoo's contention is that it
is legal for a president to do such things, would he maintain that it might
conceivably be legal for another nation's president to do the same, including to
our cities and villages and (if we had any) testicles? And, given that
Professor Yoo has argued explicitly that neither international nor domestic law
can be a constraint on such presidential prerogatives, isn't it almost a
certainty that other nation's presidents must have the same prerogatives, unless
there is something unique about our nation? What would that be, sir?
And if there is not a satisfactory answer to that question, and if it is legal
for presidents to destroy all human life, then it would seem to be legal to
eliminate all law, since law will die with the human race. Can the
elimination of law really be considered legal?"<BR><BR>"With all due respect,
Senator, there's a Muslim behind your chair. Ha! Made you
look. Oh god, that was a good one. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm.
Senator? Are you . . . Somebody pick him up. Somebody. Oh,
Jesus, call 911. Call 911!"</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.2in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in"
align=justify><STRONG>David Swanson</STRONG><EM> is the author of the new book
"Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by
Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in
your town: </EM><EM><A href="http://davidswanson.org/book" target=_blank><FONT
color=#0029de>http://davidswanson.org/book</FONT></A></EM><EM>.</EM> </DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV><!-- end of AOLMsgPart_2_b52fb282-4eec-407d-9383-2c81598e2199 -->
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