Gonzales "slips" out memo before confirmation hearings...

[kentuck]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/

<SNIP>
Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon.

<snip>
Although it makes no reference to Saddam Hussein’s government, the 15-page memo also seems to lay a legal groundwork for the president to invade Iraq—without approval of Congress—long before the White House had publicly expressed any intent to do so. “The President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of Sept. 11,” the memo states.

The existence of the memo, titled “The President’s Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them,” was first reported by NEWSWEEK in the fall of 2001. But its contents—including the conclusion that Bush could order attacks against countries unrelated to the 9/11 attacks—were not publicly available until late this week when, with no notice to the public or the news media, the memo was posted on an obscure portion of the Web site of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. (There is nothing on the site calling attention to the memo. It is was simply added to a list of previously published memos posted for the calendar year 2001.)

A senior White House official alerted a NEWSWEEK reporter to the memo’s posting after mentioning that a copy was also being sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has been pressing the White House to release this and other memos in time for Gonzales’ confirmation hearings next month to be attorney general.

[aquart]

1. Is there anything Gonzales wouldn't justify?

What are our law schools teaching?

[unblock]

4. you think he learned this crap in law school?

[gmoney]

2. An other "one cheek sneak" as Sam & Janeane would say... (eom)

[aquart]

3. Which "senior White House official"? And why?

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. So is it worth some capital to defeat this evil man for AG?

I'm not really sure what we're saving the capital for. Are we only to oppose the SCOTUS picks and allow all of Bush's agenda to sail through unopposed? I don't understand what exactly we, as an opposition party, actually oppose?

[pnutchuck]

6. I'm not sure "we" oppose anything anymore

I read a post earlier that said Dean was recommending the Dems embrace the pro-lifers.

[pnutchuck]

7. here's the thread to the earlier post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1440966

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. One more piece of evidence that conspiracy was taking place?

[Ian David]

9. Gonzales also authorized torture and violating Geneva Convention

Gonzales also witheld exculpatory evidence from Bush's clemency requests while he was governor of Texas.

[UTUSN]

10. Been Saying GONZALEZ Is an Errand Boy, Doing What Others SAY

Notice that in all the news items related to Alberto GONZALEZ, it is never HIM that writes the important memos, or does the VETTING of KERIK-------it is his OFFICE. The big boys do the heavy lifting in the back suites, while GONZLEZ, who LEAHY and SHUMER say is "VERY NICE", makes like a choir boy. After all he was one of eight siblings, who STILL MAINTAINS CONTACT with them (wow!). He is SO NICE!

And John YOO is destined to freeze in Hell (DANTE sez Hell is ice, not fire).

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek

By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Updated: 5:45 p.m. ET Dec. 18, 2004

Dec. 18 - Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon.

The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s authority to wage war—a sweeping assertion of executive power that some constitutional scholars say goes considerably beyond any that had previously been articulated by the department. ....

The arguments pushed by Yoo, a prolific conservative scholar who has since left the Justice Department, reached what many view as its apex nearly a year later when, in another memo written by a colleague Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the president’s powers were so expansive that he and his surrogates were not bound by congressional laws or international treaties proscribing torture during the interrogation of detainees. ....

...according to the September 11 commission, a memo apparently written by Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith just five days before Yoo’s memo suggested “hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq.” ....

“There was a general awareness after Sept. 11 that the enemy was not simply al Qaeda—but militant Islam in general,” said Brad Berenson, who served in the White House counsel’s office at the time. ....

********UNQUOTE*******