Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree

[erronis]

Source: The Guardian

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.

In a Fox News Sunday interview, Trump declared he would try to use that interpretation to try to force through decrees on healthcare, immigration and “various other plans” over the coming month.

Constitutional scholars and human rights activists have also pointed to the deployment of paramilitary federal forces against protesters in Portland as a sign that Trump is ready to use this broad interpretation of presidential powers as a means to suppress basic constitutional rights.

“This is how it begins,” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor, wrote on Twitter. “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable. If ever there was a time for peaceful civil disobedience, that time is upon us.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/trump-john-yoo-lawyer-torture-waterboarding

---

Yoo became notorious for a legal memo he drafted in August 2002, when he was deputy assistant attorney general in the justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

It stated: “Necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate’ the criminal prohibition against torture.”

Memos drafted by Yoo were used for justifying waterboarding and other forms of torture on terrorism suspects in CIA “black sites” around the world.

Ever scraping at the bottom of the barrel. When can democracy rid itself of these vermin?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. tRump is in fascist desperation, a drowning man clutching straws. . . . nt

[TeamPooka]

2. Yoo should have been tried and jailed for war crimes.

Maybe this time...

[Grokenstein]

11. Yes, we need to stop making this mistake.

"Let bygones be bygones" is not a game one plays with fascists.

[volstork]

34. We've been doing that

at our own peril since 1974.

[sandensea]

15. Just like his boss and the rest of the neocons

[onecent]

3. What the hell is this man thinking???????????????????????????/

I think we should get him out of there THIS WEEK in handcuffs.....

[erronis]

4. Adding more content from the Guardian article

Alka Pradhan, a defence counsel in the 9/11 terrorism cases against inmates in the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, said: “John Yoo’s so-called reasoning has always been based on ‘What can the president get away with?’ rather than ‘What is the purpose and letter of the law?’

“That is not legal reasoning, it’s inherently tyrannical and anti-democratic.”

Yoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pradhan and other defence lawyers in the pre-trial hearings at the Guantánamo Bay military tribunal have argued that the use of torture against their clients, made possible by Yoo’s 2002 memo, invalidated much of the case against them.

“The fact that John Yoo is employed and free to opine on legal matters is an example of the culture of impunity in the United States,” she said.

“Our failure to hold him (and other torture-promoters) accountable after the Bush administration enabled him to continue to rot the legal checks and balances around the presidency today.”

[lagomorph777]

8. Yoo should be in Gitmo.

[DSandra]

21. Dems have been too much like Neville Chamberlain

And this is the result...

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

Link to tweet

[MFGsunny]

10. + 1000 n/t

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. And the Obama admin's refusal

to punish war crimes is a contributing factor to our current situation. Not the main one mind you, but had we avoided the policy of "look forward, not back" and sent Yoo, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, and perhaps even Bush to prison, the legal landscape would be a lot less tolerant of dictators and STASI-like secret police.

[lagomorph777]

9. Each time we let the pukes get away with a crime, they escalate.

[Miguelito Loveless]

29. Exactly

If we manage to win this year, and the country still exists, the entire government must be totally de-Trumpified!

[47of74]

32. I honestly think there is a place for the death penalty

I’ve come from believing that it’s never justified to being justified and appropriate in some cases. Those cases being treason, voter suppression, and electoral fraud. Those are three crimes where the punishment should be so God awful that Republicans will never want to commit those crimes and will never want to take one for the team.

[Miguelito Loveless]

36. I would agree, but I am always stopped by our very flawed justice system

I would sub life imprisonment for the death penalty, since:

1) I am a vicious bastard
2) it’s reversible in the event of a wrongful conviction.

[unblock]

7. How long do we keep saying "this is how it begins"??

We've been saying that ever since Reagan and Gingrich demonized the Democratic Party, built a Republican Party based on bigotry and contempt for government and experts and truth, and fox news and hate radio started spewing right wing propaganda relentlessly and shamelessly.

Donnie and his gang, including foreign operatives, stole the election and then began a purge and destruction of the bureaucracy and oversight and ethics went completely out the window.

Can we at least say it started with donnie's election, if not with Reagan's? It sure didn't start all of a sudden with a few arrests of protesters.

[PSPS]

25. It's called incrementalism

Ask any German, if you can find one, who lived through it in the 30's. You arrive at your desired goal not all of a sudden but, rather, by many smaller incremental steps which are calibrated to be just under the tipping point of public rejection.

[unblock]

28. my mother is a holocaust survivor.

i'm well aware, indeed.

but that's the point. we're now well down the path, quite a ways from the beginning.

[Me.]

12. Seems Like They're Looking For Some TYpe Of Showdown

if so, let's hope it ends with him in jail

[jalan48]

13. No worries. The SCOTUS has ruled Trump isn't above the law.

[erronis]

16. You forgot the "sarcasm" tag (I hope.)

[jalan48]

17. Yes, I'm not as optimistic as some about the Courts giving us victories.

[Mr.Bill]

14. How can we get rid of a fascist ruler?

I'll give you a hint. The last two were not gotten rid of by voting.

[erronis]

18. If you're talking about who I think, they weren't ridded by internal pressures, either.

It took massive outside interventions (5+ years.) and millions of deaths.

I'm hoping that the US can do this a bit more peacefully, but I'm not sure.

[regnaD kciN]

39. And where would the "massive outside interventions" come this time...?

Which other world superpower would bat an eye about Trump dismantling U.S. democracy and entrenching himself as dictator? They'd probably just welcome him to the club.

[jmowreader]

26. The last ruler like Trump was Romanian strongman Nicolae Ceausescu

How he was gotten rid of was the government finally had enough of his shit and stood him and his just-as-evil wife up against the wall.

[Mr.Bill]

27. Honestly, I wasn't thinking of him

but good point and still fits my narrative.

[DallasNE]

19. This Is What Happens When There Is No Accountability

Self-serving memos like this should never be used as justification for government policy that is not allowed under current law. The Bush team should have been charged for criminal acts and sent to jail. Not doing that back then means that framing became the precedent for similar action today. Just stop it. It was wrong then and it is wrong yet today.

[Evolve Dammit]

20. Consulting the atty. who thought torture was OK and Geneva Conventions "quaint." F' em all

[Ligyron]

22. What entity exists that can stand up to their criminality and stop them?

This is the problem in our system of government as I see it since it was always assumed this would never even be tried or be shamed away if it was.

Even when they are ruled against legally, they simply ignore it.

We have a big problem here and if we manage to regain power every little friggin' thing every eventuality will have to be encoded into law so clear even their bought and paid for judges can't possibly ignore or "misinterpret" it.

I guess?

IDK, it's beyond me ...

[erronis]

24. The people (writ large)? Or the military? Both options involve a lot of pain.

We know the US senate is worthless under McTurtle.

We know that the courts have been loaded with libertarians via said McTurtle and a compliant (r)epuglican/(russian) congress.

We know that the rule of law is now interpreted to mean that the emperor is all powerful.

None of these entities will give up power voluntarily.

The plight of the common person is likely doomed if they rely on the government as it now stands.

[leftieNanner]

30. I have had the same thoughts

The House and Senate could hold hearings? That accomplishes nothing if the Executive branch operates on the "Fuck You - make me" method of governance. Maybe the House could defund some of these departments (Barr's DOJ, for example), but they already have the money appropriated for NOW and NOW is when we need to respond.

I don't know what the answer is for right now, but when we take over in January EVERYTHING has to be encoded into law. Trump, Barr, and McConnell have blown through every single norm that has stood for 240 years.

[Ligyron]

42. Yes, defunding is one weapon we had but chose not to use.

We always want to play fair and give them the benefit of the doubt. I also think it wasn't as bad as it's become back then and they figured he/they'd play ball at some point and just had no idea. I didn't either to be honest until Barr sleezed his phony ass christian way in and began to act.

Even if Dump was to, and may gawd forbid, somehow win a second term I'm not sure we'd have the balls to do so even then either. I hope I'm wrong.

Just removing him physically from the White House isn't a given either, although I would hope there are still enough patriots in the Federal Marshall's organization, or if needs be the military who respect the Rule of Law like we do, that when he and his ilk lose the election, they'd still drag his fat ass out of our White House and kick him to the curb and into the gutter where he and those like him belong.

Then some who know better than I how these things work needs to do a ritual cleansing of every square inch with one of those burning sage or whatever smudge thingies to hopefully drive away whatever evil demons or spirits still remain in The People's House.

It would be nice to close this disgraceful chapter in out great nation's history and move on.

[bucolic_frolic]

23. Yeah, that'll be a popular decree

"No election this year. Maybe in four years when we can have the best election."

[paleotn]

31. Hey, Torture Yoo! Now that's a name from the past.

[Scalded Nun]

33. Yeah, being the bigger person and putting this behind us has really worked out.

[choie]

35. Another example of why we should have

prosecuted members of the Bush administration, instead of "looking forward, not back"

[Scalded Nun]

37. Where the fuck are all these people?

1. NRA. The government is coming for you. Send us your money. We are the only thing standing in the way!!!
2. RW nut jobs. The government is coming for us all. We and our guns are the only thing standing in the way!!!
3. Red states. The government is coming for us all. Keep voting for us because we are the only thing standing in the way!!!

Everyone can see what is going on. Just where are these cowards? Hiding somewhere sniffing the shit in their pants while this country burns.

[Squidly]

40. To them the guberment is da libtards

They think the orange POS is one of them

[Javaman]

38. he's doing a full court press trying to figure out a way he can fuck the election

and stay in power when he loses or just not have an election at all.

mark my words.