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John Yoo is the notorious George W. Bush administration Justice Department official who wrote the 2002 memos authorizing the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” that are now widely considered to have constituted torture. He has written a piece in Monday’s New York Times arguing that Donald Trump is a threat to the Constitution.
Yoo cites a number of Trump public statements that indicate a lack of understanding of the president’s role vis-à-vis the courts and Congress, but also takes specific issue with two executive orders:
Take his order to build a wall along the border with Mexico. … The president has no constitutional authority over border control, which the Supreme Court has long found rests in the hands of Congress.
And:
After the [seven-country refugee/immigrant travel ban] was issued, his adviser Rudolph Giuliani disclosed that Mr. Trump had initially asked for “a Muslim ban,” which would most likely violate the Constitution’s protection for freedom of religion or its prohibition on the state establishment of religion, or both—no mean feat. Had Mr. Trump taken advantage of the resources of the executive branch as a whole, not just a few White House advisers, he would not have rushed out an ill-conceived policy made vulnerable to judicial challenge.
Yoo’s suggested solution:
Someone in Congress should take Trump to a secret foreign prison where, without access to an attorney, he will be repeatedly slapped, slammed into a wall, shut in a box with an insect in it, and waterboarded.
I’m kidding, of course. That’s in fact John Yoo’s suggested solution for dealing with any old random Middle Eastern person who is under even the vaguest suspicion of involvement in terrorism. He didn’t say anything in particular about what we should do about Trump.
