by hilzoy
From the NYT:
“The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush’s domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.
The Justice Department is balking at the request so far, administration officials said, arguing that the legal opinions would add little to the public debate because the administration has already laid out its legal defense at length in several public settings.
But the legality of the program is known to have produced serious concerns within the Justice Department in 2004, at a time when one of the legal opinions was drafted. Democrats say they want to review the internal opinions to assess how legal thinking on the program evolved and whether lawyers in the department saw any concrete limits to the president’s powers in fighting terrorism.
With the committee scheduled to hold the first public hearing on the eavesdropping program on Monday, the Justice Department’s stance could provoke another clash between Congress and the executive branch over access to classified internal documents. The administration has already drawn fire from Democrats in the last week for refusing to release internal documents on Hurricane Katrina as well as material related to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff.”
This is serious. Our President has already said that, in his opinion, all it takes to respect the checks and balances of our system of government is to tell eight members of Congress what he’s doing, under conditions of secrecy so extreme that they were not allowed to discuss the program with anyone and had to stash handwritten letters questioning its legality away in safes. He has chosen to circumvent the courts set up to issue warrants for domestic surveillance. He is now defying the Congress, the only remaining branch of government that could possibly exercise any oversight over his actions, actions that a lot of people have argued are illegal. (see, e.g., here.) As Katherine said, he is asserting unchecked power to do as he pleases, without even allowing any sort of oversight of his actions.
This is intolerable in our system of government. If Congress has any self-respect or independence left, they will not let this stand.
I discuss the legalities, as I understand them, below the fold. As always, ianal.