March 27, 2006
When President Bush signed a law banning torture he quietly signed a
statement saying he could bypass it. Earlier this month, Bush signed
the USA Patriot Act but signed a statement that said he did not
consider oversight rules binding. We speak with the Boston Globe
reporter who broke the story. [includes rush transcript]
The USA Patriot Act was re-authorized this month after a lengthy
bi-partisan effort to include new provisions safeguarding Congressional
oversight. The new provisions mandated President Bush to brief Congress
about how the FBI was using expanded authorities to search and monitor
suspects. But shortly after he signed the bill into effect, Bush
quietly issued what is known as a signing statement in which he lays
out his interpretation of the law. In this document Bush declared he
did not consider himself bound by the oversight provisions. Bush wrote
he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosing it
would harm foreign relations, national security or his duties as
President.
This was not the first such statement to come from the White House.
When Congress passed a bill outlawing torture of detainees last year,
President Bush quietly released a signing statement in which he
affirmed his right to bypass the law if he felt it jeopardized national
security. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said the
President"s latest effort represents "nothing short of a radical effort
to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade
accountability and responsibility for following the law."
- Charlie Savage, reporter with the Washington bureau of Boston Globe who has written several articles exposing Bush's signing statements.
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RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: We're joined right now in our Washington, D.C., studio by Charlie Savage, a reporter with the Boston Globe
in the Washington bureau. He's written a number of pieces exposing
these signing statements that don't see the light of day very much.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Charlie Savage.
CHARLIE SAVAGE: Thank you, it’s nice to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well, just
explain how these statements work. The President signs the law, and
then someone hands him the statement?
CHARLIE SAVAGE: Essentially, someone in his office, a
lawyer, drafts a statement that gets issued along with the signing of
the bill. This is not a proclamation that says, "I'm really glad that I
signed the bill; it's going to help us." It's a technically legal
document that lays out how he's going to enforce the bill, what it is
he says that he signed that day. And previous presidents have issued
these, but they've never issued them the way President Bush has, both
in terms of frequency and in terms of the aggression with which he
says, 'I am not bound by this, I'm not bound by that, I will take this
law in bits and pieces, I'll enforce the measures I like, and I have
the power as president and commander-in-chief to ignore the provisions
I don't like.’
And so, in this case, in the PATRIOT Act case, all the
provisions in which Congress said, 'We'll give you these powers, we'll
renew this act. But you've got to tell us how you're using them, so we
make sure that they're not being abused,’ he said 'as president and
commander-in-chief and the head of the executive branch, I will decide
what I tell you, if anything, and that's just what I can do under the
Constitution.’
AMY GOODMAN: How often have signing statements been used?
CHARLIE SAVAGE: Well, as I said, previous presidents have
done this, going way back in time. The frequency really increased under
the Reagan administration. And Clinton also issued a number of them.
But President Bush has taken this to an unprecedented level. I think
one study showed that through the end of 2004, there were more than 500
provisions of new laws that he had said that he would not consider
himself bound to obey, just through the end of his first term. And so,
he's really been aggressive about this, in a new way.
AMY GOODMAN: How much attention have these signing
statements gotten? The most recent one, the USA PATRIOT Act, which at
first, well, there was a question -- there's a lot of controversy about
it. Explain how that happened, the more recent one, then we'll go back
to torture.
CHARLIE SAVAGE: How the signing statement happened or how we --?
AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, how much attention it has gotten and
what it means for senators who said that they weren't going to sign off
on this unless they got certain concessions, and then this
eviscerating, the signing statement eviscerating these concessions.
CHARLIE SAVAGE: I understand. Well, initially, very
little attention. No one is used to paying attention to these things.
These are not something that's been regularly a part of the political
fabric of our country. The traditional way that it happens is if a
president gets a bill that he doesn't like, he either swallows the
provisions he doesn't like and signs the whole thing, or he vetoes it,
because he says, 'I can't live with this,’ and then Congress can try to
override the veto or not, depending on the strength. That's how
traditionally it's supposed to work under the Constitution. And the
Bush team has never vetoed a single bill in the five years he’s been
president now. Instead, they’ve used these signing statements to say
that 'we will take, you know, the bits that we want and ignore the
other parts.’ And no one has been used to looking at these things.
So, Bush issued this signing statement on the PATRIOT Act on
March 9th, the same day that he signed the bill. But it went almost
unnoticed. There were a few legal specialist blogs that sort of took
note of it in a wry way. I wrote this article that came out in Friday's
paper. And there was a huge response, as people realized what he had
done again. But that was the first time in the mainstream media, at
least, that it's received any kind of attention.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the previous signing statement
happened over New Year's. Can you talk about that, around torture,
specifically, what the bill says, what the ban on torture is about,
what's called the McCain bill, and then, what the signing statement
says?
CHARLIE SAVAGE: Absolutely. Well, you may recall that
there was a huge controversy in Congress last year with John McCain
trying to make clear in federal law that it is illegal to torture, for
a U.S. official to torture a detainee in U.S. custody, no matter where
that detainee is, anywhere in the world. I think most specialists would
say that was already illegal. But the Bush administration had come up
with some contorted arguments about why maybe they could get around it
if it was outside the U.S. border. And so, there was a long fight in
Congress in which McCain was trying to get this passed. And Bush kept
threatening to veto it and fought it hard. Dick Cheney personally came
to Congress to say, "Don't do this, don't do this." But Republicans
came together with Democrats; they passed this overwhelmingly in both
chambers. It was such a show of force in both chambers that Bush could
not veto it. They had the strength to override the veto. So then, he
signed the bill.
He invited McCain into the White House and said, 'Oh, this is
a good thing. It’s going to help us with our image,’ even though he had
been fighting it all along. And then, after McCain had left and
everyone had gone home, he again issued another one of these signing
statements. This was on the Friday, late in the evening before -- on
the weekend of New Year's Eve, when everyone had gone home,
essentially, saying, 'By the way, I'm commander-in-chief, and I don't
really have to pay attention to this if I don’t want to. If it’s the
national security is involved, I can do whatever I want.’ And again,
you know, it was New Year's weekend; no one really paid attention.
And I saw in a legal blog, when I came into work the next
week, that someone was taking note of this and started exploring it.
And sure enough, that's what he had said, and that's what it meant. I
called the White House and asked them for an explanation, and they put
me on the phone with someone to serve as their spokesman, who said,
'Yes, you know, we intend to follow this law, but a situation could
arise where we don't have to.’ And so, that's what it means. And you
know, there was a sense of outrage over that, including among
Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and John Warner and especially
John McCain: 'We had negotiated this. This is what it means. We passed
the law. You've got to follow it.’ And the question with both of the
PATRIOT Act and the torture thing is, this is just a piece of paper in
which he says, 'I don't have to do this if I don't want to.’ But it's
not proof that he's not going to do it, and it’s not proof that he
hasn't done it.
AMY GOODMAN: Can Congress do anything about this?
CHARLIE SAVAGE: Well, that's a good question. If they
have the political will, they can try to pass more, tougher
legislation. They can try to withhold funding for things. They could
launch investigations. Right now, Congress is, however, dominated by
the same party as the President. They are not particularly willing to,
or have not proven themselves particularly willing until now, with a
few exceptions, to be too aggressive in conducting oversight on what
he's doing.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Charlie Savage, I want to thank you for being with us. And we will link at democracynow.org to your stories at the Boston Globe.
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