Boy has Charlie Savage caused a headache for Barack Obama and Harold Koh. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had a hearing to grill Koh today, in part, because of Savage’s report that Obama overrode OLC, DOJ, and DOD lawyers in deciding that we are not engaged in “hostilities” with Libya and therefore he can blow [...]

I’m watching the Senate Foreign Relation Committee’s grilling of Harold Koh–either bmaz or I will post on that later. But Jim Webb just made a really important point. He noted that we have suspended, but not severed, our relations with Libya. After cornering Koh on that issue (and finally getting Koh to acknowledge that point), [...]

If our society and political discourse cannot seriously discuss impeachment for the type of executive perfidy demonstrated by Barack Obama in relation to Libya and the War Powers Resolution, and could not discuss it during the Bush/Cheney crimes, then the impeachment provision of the Constitution has no meaning and should be stricken.

I’m back into moving hell this week, so I haven’t looked as closely at all the WikiLeak cables that have come out. But I wanted to add one point to David Corn’s story on a cable showing the discussions about a potential Spanish prosecution of our torture lawyers. As Corn describes, the cable chronicles a [...]

Happy Fourth of July. This week, the DC Circuit Court had to tell the government that using false passports does not make someone an al Qaeda member. At issue is the appeal of Belkacem Bensayah, an Algerian who had been living in Bosnia alleged to have arranged travel for five others (the rest of the [...]

Dawn Johnsen has a must-read op-ed today describing how the Bybee memo damaged the Office of Legal Counsel. In 2004, the leak of a controversial memo on the use of torture catapulted the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel into the spotlight. Fallout and debate continue, including in the context of my nomination — withdrawn [...]

Steven Edwards, one of the four journalists banned from Gitmo for reporting publicly available information, has an important story on squabbles within the Obama Administration about what should be in the recently updated Gitmo military tribunal manual. At issue is whether actions like Khadr’s alleged crime–throwing a grenade during active warfare–should be included. The officials [...]

If you haven’t already read these two posts at Danger Room, you should do so. It reports and elaborates on the discussion at a Congressional hearing yesterday about whether or not our use of drones is legal. As you recall, State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh recently justified the use of the drones because they [...]

I don’t know about you. But I’m sort of bored with the Holder v. Rahm fight over torture and Gitmo. My hope is they’ll start a military commission trial, it’ll get delayed and challenged, and Holder will be able to demonstrate in terms even Rahm understands that civilian trials are not just a question of [...]