On Monday, following the Supreme Court decision Trump v. United States, President Biden said from the White House: “No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.”
UN whistleblower Craig Mokhiber wrote: “U.S. presidents have always been above the law. Their victims span the globe, in the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, Chile, Palestine and beyond. Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling extends that impunity to the victimization of the American people at home. The crimes of empire always come home.”
FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
Boyle is professor of law at the University of Illinois. His books include Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. He said today: “This is a terrible decision, but liberals like Laurence Tribe deriding it are complete hypocrites. It’s like in Casablanca, they are shocked, shocked that gambling is going on. Successive Democratic administrations have pushed for the expansion of illegal presidential powers. For example, allowing Obama to use drones to assassinate U.S. citizens.” Boyle has long warned of the power of the Federalist Society and has been advocating “counterpacking” the Supreme Court.
State Department whistleblower Josh Paul and others have argued that the Biden administration is in violation of several U.S. laws by continuing to arm Israel, including the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, the Genocide Convention Implementation Act and the Leahy Law, which prohibits funding militaries engaging in gross human rights abuses. The Guardian is reporting: “Freed Gaza hospital head accuses Israel of repeated torture.”
But U.S. courts have typically avoided finding that U.S. foreign policy is illegal. Earlier this year, in a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups charging Biden administration officials with complicity in Israel’s genocide, AP reported: “U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said he didn’t have jurisdiction over the matter, but he still offered harsh criticism of the administration and said Israel’s actions may amount to genocide.” Spain recently became the first European country to join South Africa’s Genocide Convention case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
The late Stanley Kutler, author of The Wars of Watergate, stated on an IPA news release in 2005 that in the past when committing constitutional overreach, the executive branch had “seemed to stake its constitutional authority on a claim that the President had succeeded to the sovereign powers of George III.”
