Occasionally, I post a primary document that is important to Power Wars or Takeover in the blog section of this website. Most of them were not previously public or readily accessible. This page compiles links to them so they are easier to find. I will update it whenever I put up another one.
TAKEOVER
- Report by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy for Attorney General Edwin Meese III, “Separation of Powers: Legislative-Executive Relations,” April 30, 1986; see also this post
- Minority Report of the Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, November 1987
- Representative Dick Cheney’s undelivered American Enterprise Institute paper explaining his views on presidential power, “Congressional Overreaching in Foreign Policy,” March 1989
- Audio recording of a speech by Justice Antonin Scalia recalling being a Ford administration official during the Church Committee investigation, a keynote address at the International Conference on the Administration of Justice and National Security in Democracies, in Ottawa, Canada, June 12, 2007
POWER WARS
- Two documents related to the invention of surveillance transit authority
- Department of Justice Intelligence Counsel Mary Lawton’s (heavily redacted) memo about changing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in light of the arrival of transoceanic fiberoptic networks, “Possible Amendments to FISA,” November 1, 1990
- Department of Justice/Department of Defense (heavily redacted) document that created transit authority, “Classified Annex to Department of Defense Procedures Under Executive Order 12333,” April 26, 1988 (Taft)/May 27, 1988 (Meese)
- Guantanamo
- Senator Lindsey Graham’s grand bargain proposal over Guantanamo, “Key Elements of a Guantanamo Detainee Disposition Plan,” August 5, 2009
- David Barron’s Office of Legal Counsel white paper on whether a statute barring prosecution of the 9/11 case in civilian court would be an unconstitutional usurpation of executive power, “Constitutional Issues Related to the Graham Amendment or Similar Legislation,” January 2010
- National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s memo to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel pressing him to accept more risk when deciding whether to transfer Guantanamo detainees, “Guidance on Guantanamo Detainee Transfers,” May 24, 2014
- A collection of documents related to the legal dispute raised by the Bergdahl-Taliban prisoner swap, including
- Statement by NSC Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden on the NDAA and the Transfer of Taliban Detainees from Guantanamo, June 3, 2014
- Administration Views Provided to the Government Accountability Office, July 31, 2014
- GAO report, “Department of Defense–Compliance with Statutory Notification,” August 21, 2014
- DOD rebuttal to GAO report, December 5, 2014
- House Armed Services Committee report, with minority dissent, December 9, 2015