Democrat politicians are consistent in their approach; they seek to change the rules when they are unable to win by them. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has written to Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting the Justice Department to withdraw several opinions on presidential control over the military.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to nullify various internal opinions concerning a president’s military powers and seeking clarification on the domestic deployment of American forces.
The communication to Attorney General Merrick Garland is just under two weeks before President-elect Trump assumes office and seeks for the Justice Department to define the boundaries of the president’s power on various issues.
The letter, obtained by The Hill, refers to a cache of opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which houses the department’s own legal advisers and sets guidelines on various legal matters.
That sounds a bit arcane, and it likely is; the president, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, should take the word of the Constitution first and foremost. But, yes, everything is (tiresomely at times) subject to legal interpretation. What’s interesting here is that Durbin is asking the DOJ to rescind opinions that he evidently agreed with while Joe Biden was president.
Did you hear that scraping sound? That’s the sound of goalposts being moved.
Durbin asked the office to release its opinions on the extent to which presidents can use the military domestically, a request that comes as Trump has said he will use the armed forces to help carry out the largest deportation operation the country has seen.
“I request that the Department of Justice publicly release opinions and manuals pertaining to the domestic use of the U.S. military. For decades, OLC has issued guidance on the circumstances in which the President may deploy the military within the United States, as well as what servicemembers may do when so deployed,” he wrote, noting that some of those documents have not been made public.
Since the President-elect is talking about using the military for logistics, not directly engaging with illegal border crossers, it would seem that Durbin’s concerns would be pre-empted. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Durbin is asking the DOJ to throw chocks under the wheels of the incoming Trump administration by pushing the revision of legal opinions to which he had no objection two months ago.
That’s not transparency. That’s changing the rules in mid-game because his side was losing.
