George W. had powers—we didn’t know about, until now—he never used
As it turns out, George W. Bush was restraining himself. A series of secret White House memos, made public by the Obama administration yesterday, reveal that Dubya’s legal advisers had determined the President had virtually unlimited powers to pursue his war on terror. Among the powers they claimed, but never used: overiding free speech guarantees, having the army search houses and seize suspected terrorists without a court-approved warrant, and permitting Bush to unilaterally abrogate treaties with other nations. The memos are “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of what the Bush administration authorized, says one lawyer.