It was once rare for Congress to go to court. But the number of cases House Democrats are now litigating is historically unprecedented — a Trump-era aberration that is accelerating a larger shift in governance whose seeds predate Trump. w/ @npfandos The House v. Trump: Stymied Lawmakers Increasingly Battle in the Courts It’s routine, of […]
Author: Charlie Savage
The Gotcha Takes on Barr’s Census Question Comments Are Off, But Something Else Is Dubious
I think some gotcha takes are missing the mark re Barr’s comments about the “hysterical” media insinuating that the Trump admin was thinking about adding the citizenship question to the Census by executive fiat. There is something here worth scrutinizing, but it’s different. /1 People are citing Barr saying Monday, after being asked about an […]
A Victory Against Secret Law: Appeals Court De-Censors Its Ruling in Doe v. Mattis (the U.S. citizen enemy combatant case)
Today, in a victory against secret law, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has unsealed and re-issued a significant ruling it issued in May 2018 in the case of Doe v. Mattis, regarding an American citizen who was held without trial in American military custody for over a year as a suspected […]
The NYT Is Surveying 2020 Presidential Primary Candidates About Their Views on Executive Power
On Friday, I emailed numerous presidential primary campaigns an invitation to participate in a New York Times survey project on executive power. Our intent is to publish the full answers of each participating candidate, alongside notations indicating which others were unwilling or unable to answer the questions. We gave the campaigns a one-month deadline of […]
Remembering Robert Pear
My colleague Robert Pear died last night following a stroke. I would like to share a few memories and anecdotes about what it was like to work near and with him for the past 11 years. /1 Robert Pear, Authoritative Times Reporter on Health Care, Dies at 69 Robert had a very unusual personality. Despite […]
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board releases PPD-28 surveillance report in response to my FOIA
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request I submitted in the spring of 2017, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has declassified and made public a partly redacted version of its December 2016 (ish) Top Secret report on the implementation of President Obama’s PPD-28, the presidential policy directive he issued in […]
“Vice” – A Cheney Biopic [updated 4/7/19]
Check out Christian Bale as Dick Cheney in this trailer for “Vice” that dropped today. This movie looks fantastic. Chapters two and three of my first book, Takeover, were essentially an intellectual history of Cheney – why he had the views on executive power that he did, based on his previous life experiences – leading […]
Issue to watch: What are the limits on “collective self-defense” of partner forces?
Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, has sent a letter to the Pentagon continuing a dialogue about the executive branch’s expansive view of “collective self defense.” The letter contains an excerpt from a letter the military had sent him earlier this year, which is not public, in which it says that the US military has […]
On Kavanaugh-Pickering and a bad-faith critique by David French (& the Trump White House Press Office)
Senators Press Pompeo over Monitoring Ex-Gitmo Detainees, Fate of Two Libyans Deported by Senegal
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads to the Senate later today to testify before the Foreign Relations Committee, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have sent him a sharp-toned letter about the Trump-era State Department’s seeming neglect of its responsibility to monitor former Guantanamo detainees — and expressing “profound concern” about two who disappeared after they […]