Questions I Would Like To Ask James Comey

Let me take us back just a few years to a time that a sycophantic sap named John Yoo was giving lawyers a bad name by telling the President he had the authority to bypass all legal safeguards and spy on American citizens without a warrant:

The NSA activities were justified by a classified Justice Department legal opinion authored by John C. Yoo, a former deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel who argued that congressional approval of the war on al Qaeda gave broad authority to the president, according to the Times.

That legal argument was similar to another 2002 memo authored primarily by Yoo, which outlined an extremely narrow definition of torture. That opinion, which was signed by another Justice official, was formally disavowed after it was disclosed by the Washington Post.

Why is all this important? Let me quote Balkin:

If all this is true, why can't we see the March 2003 memo? One likely reason is that if the original basis for the NSA program was indeed Yoo's Executive power on steroids theory, it would be extremely embarrassing to the Administration. First, the theory as Yoo originally proposed it has no logical stopping point. Second, were the original memo to see the light of day, it would make clear that the full throated version of the theory-- that the President is not bound by criminal laws when acting as Commander-in-Chief-- was never, in fact, disavowed by the OLC or by the Administration. One can only imagine the political fallout from such a revelation. It would put, for example, the President's signing statement accompanying the McCain Amendment in a particularly bad light.

If I were on the Senate Judiciary Committee and I had the chance to ask James Comey a question or two, here is what I would ask:

1. Were you privy to the Yoo memo arguing the President had this authority?
2. What was your opinion of Yoo's logic?
3. What are the disadvantages that you can see to maintaining the integrity of the justice system with Yoo's view of Presidential power?

And those would be just the starters.