At Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin has a thoughtful response to my defense of the President’s action: More on the legality of Obama’s decision to exchange five high-ranking Taliban terrorists without giving Congress advance notice. He concludes: Perhaps Congress would be unduly infringing on the president’s powers as commander-in-chief if it tried to make individual tactical decisions on a…
Several excellent posts challenge the legality of the President’s exchange of five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo for a U.S. soldier held by the Taliban — see Josh Blackman here, Ilya Somin here (toward the bottom of the post), and especially Tim Sandefur here. As the posts explain, the exchange violated a U.S. statute that prohibits releasing any prisoners…
the power at stake here – to receive ambassadors – is expressly given to the President in what appear to be mandatory terms (he “shall” receive ambassadors).
Madison - along with Jefferson and other founders - told us that it is the duty of each individual and each branch of government to determine constitutionality. Not just the federal courts.
By Shelli Dawdy CBS’ 60 Minutes aired an interview with President Obama on Sunday. I confess, I have not had the…heart?…stomach?…enough duct tape? to watch the interview in its entirety. I had my TV on far more than usual this weekend, though, and found myself inundated with the seemingly obligatory rehashes by every political talking [...]