Well, it took some time but at last according to a recent article in Politico

The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed David Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, seeking information on his role in helping prepare Justice Dept. memos authorizing harsh interrogation methods for detainees.

Addington is required by the subpoena to appear before the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on June 26. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) chairs that subcommittee.

John Yoo, a former top DOJ official who helped draft the interrogation memos, is scheduled to voluntarily appear before the panel that same day, according to the Judiciary Committee.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee also are still in discussion with former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Douglas Feith, a former top Pentagon official, about voluntarily testifying as well.

If you aren’t excited about this subpoena, you haven’t been paying attention.

David Addington is the attorney and chief of staff to Cheney, and one of the key figures who decided that Cheney and Bush could do just about anything they wanted to do… some of the over-extended executive power. 

John Yoo is the creative young official who sat in a little known or noticed area of the Justice Department, writing up powers of the President, as Cheney wished them to be, not as the Constitution describes them. 

To best understand the importance of David Addington and John Yoo… and how our country got in the mess it’s in, I suggest that you take the time to watch Cheney’s Law, a PBS documentary that lays out exactly how Yoo expanded and extended the constitutional powers of the executive branch.  You will also learn from this little documentary that timing is everything, that Cheney believes the President should be Emperor and has despotic powers, and that Bush is the best damned little puppet Cheney could ever have wanted.

We all now know that the Emperor has no clothes and the brains of the Stray Man.  But, for those who wonder how powerful and how large a role Cheney has played in getting us into the War in Iraq, Cheney’s Law is a must see.  And, as for me, I will mark my calendar for June 26th.  I can’t wait to see Addington and Yoo explain their ways out of this one.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That’s the Fourth Amendment.  And, now to the memo.

The document disclosed, for example, that the administration’s top lawyers had declared that the president has unfettered power to seize oceangoing ships as commander in chief; that Congress has no ability to pass legislation governing the interrogations of enemy combatants; and that federal laws prohibiting assault and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives.

One section discussed to what extent the president might be allowed to legally maim a prisoner, such as through the use of a “scalding, corrosive, or caustic substance.” A footnote argued that Fifth Amendment guarantees of due-process rights “do not address actions the Executive takes in conducting a military campaign against the Nation’s enemies.”

This memo came into being when John Yoo was a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.  Of course, there has been much written of Mr. Yoo’s wide range of what he decided was the expansion of presidential powers. 

Two memos written or drafted by Yoo, including the 2003 memo released this week, have been formally withdrawn by the Justice Department. However, the October 2001 memo arguing for unregulated military searches on U.S. soil has not been formally withdrawn and remains a secret but unclassified document, according to Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

The memo in question was made public on Tuesday, thanks to the ACLU who commented on it saying:

No court has ever ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the military, said Jameel Jaffer, national security director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “In general, the government can’t send an FBI agent to search your home or listen to your phone calls without a warrant, and it can’t send a soldier to do it, either,” Jaffer said. “The applicability of the Fourth Amendment doesn’t turn on what kind of uniform the government agent is wearing.”

The purpose of this post is to make the reader aware of some of the far reaching powers that have been assumed by the present administration and how they came into being.  In the documentary “Cheney’s Law” there is discussion of how John Yoo, eager to please, addressed and expanded the legal intentions of the administration through various memos. 

Perhaps, it will be years before we know the full extent to which the Justice Department and the little known Office of Legal Counsel have gone to erode our rights as guaranteed under the Constitution.  There has been no transparency in this present administration.  In fact, it has functioned under a fog that few new about, and mostly at the direction of the Vice President.

There are several PBS documentaries that are available in full online that will chill you to the bone.  They are free for the clicking. 

Cheney’s Law

Bush’s War