Jack Goldsmith

Jack Goldsmith is a former attorney of the Office of Legal Council. He nearly resigned because of a top secret surveillance program. Former Justice Department official and FBI Director Robert Mueller were prepared to resign, with him, because of the same program. All three men were in the hospital room attempting to stop Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card from making John Ashcroft sign authorization to a secret program.

Goldsmith eventually resigned after overruling a John Yoo torture opinion.

Goldsmith was concerned, however, that the White House might overrule him. So he made a strategic decision: on the same day that he withdrew the opinion, he submitted his resignation, effectively forcing the administration to choose between accepting his decision and letting him leave quietly, or rejecting it and turning his resignation into a big news story. “If the story had come out that the U.S. government decided to stick by the controversial opinions that led the head of the Office of Legal Counsel to resign, that would have looked bad,” Goldsmith told me. “The timing was designed to ensure that the decision stuck.”

The White House drafted these opinions to justify their consolidation of presidential power. The NSA was not allowed to view legal opinions that involved their agency. The affect was the Bush administration weakened executive power for future generations.

In retrospect, Goldsmith told me, Bush “could have achieved all that he wanted to achieve, and put it on a firmer foundation, if he had been willing to reach out to other institutions of government.” Instead, Goldsmith said, he weakened the presidency he was so determined to strengthen. “I don’t think any president in the near future can have the same attitude toward executive power, because the other institutions of government won’t allow it,” he said softly. “The Bush administration has borrowed its power against future presidents.”

What is surprising about the legal fights within the administration is how well John Ashcroft comes off. He hated Yoo's opinions and thought tribunals were a bad idea. It's scary when conservative laywers feel that the Bushies are extreme. These people aren't tree-hugging hippies. They are hardcore Republican. Even they were shaking their heads and saying "WTF."

Hat tip to Mustang Bobby.