From wiretapping American citizens to waterboarding foreign
prisoners, the Bush administration has triggered an uproar over its
tactics in the War on Terror-and over its justifications for using
them. Through a close study of the legal advice provided to
President Bush, former Justice Department attorney Harold Bruff
provides an incisive and scathing critique of those justifications,
which he finds at odds with both American law and moral authority.
Bruff rigorously examines legal opinions regarding NSA
surveillance, the indefinite detention of terror suspects, the
denial of Geneva Convention protection, trial by military
commissions, and suspect interrogation techniques. He shows that
Bush's claims of executive power exceed anything found in U.S.
history or judicial precedent, that clear statutory limitations
were treated with contempt, and that Bush and his lawyers strove to
exclude both congressional and judicial participation in setting
antiterrorist policy.
Bruff dissects the legal underpinnings employed by John Yoo,
David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and others to defend an inflated
view of presidential power, showing how they combined ideology,
policy advocacy, and selective readings of legal precedent to
bolster executive actions. Most important, he brings into sharp
focus legitimate counterarguments from the State Department, the
Pentagon, and the Office of Legal Counsel that challenged or
refuted these legally suspect views and yet were largely ignored or
even ridiculed by the president's advisers. Offering contrasts with
the legal advice provided previous presidents, he also reviews the
fundamental constitutional limits on executive action and the
principles of professional responsibility that govern lawyers when
they counsel government clients.
As Bruff observes, bad advice to presidents is never in short
supply, but legal advice should be objective and reliable. His book
points up the urgent need for advisers to serve both the president
and the nation by finding a middle ground between limiting
presidential power and allowing it the flexibility it needs to
respond to crises. Both highly readable and authoritative, it is a
must for legal scholars and an eye-opener for every citizen
concerned with preserving our nation's commitment to the rule of
law.
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