Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush

Through transcripts, memos, and analysis, Representative John C. Conyers, Jr. and the House Judiciary Committee reveal how the Bush administration again and again assumed more power than the Constitution allows, and circumvented the traditional checks and balances of our system. From ignoring laws that forbid torturing, to determining that the president himself—not the courts—can decide the reach of the law, to using creative counselors to recast the statutory law or the Constitution itself...