You go now. You been here four hour.
Posted on 05/30/2025 11:30:44 PM PDT by ransomnote
The following is an excerpt of the book description written for The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century which Professor Harold Hongju Koh published on June 25, 2024.
If re-elected, could President Trump, by a single tweet, withdraw America from the United Nations, NATO, and every treaty and international organization to which the U.S. belongs? Or if re-elected, could President Biden gradually take us to war throughout the Mideast—Gaza, Yemen, Iran, the Red Sea—by supplying weapons and ordering drone strikes, cybercommands and Special Forces without congressional approval?
SNIP
This increasing imbalance of foreign affairs power has intensified across recent administrations of both parties. Some presidents like Trump and George W. Bush proactively grabbed unilateral power, while others (Clinton, Obama, Biden) reactively asserted unilateral authority when they could not win congressional support. This shift towards extreme imbalance spiked sharply during Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency. Trump ordered a discriminatory “Muslim Ban,” unilateral exits from treaties and agreements, defied Congress’ power of the purse by building a border wall over its objection, lethally targeted an Iranian general on Iraqi soil, and politicized the Justice Department to punish political “enemies.” His two impeachments illustrated how far he had diverted foreign policy to partisan political ends. The Mueller Report documented how he welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and strongarmed Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to get dirt on his 2020 political rival. Even after Trump was defeated at the polls, he encouraged mob violence to overturn the 2020 election results.
Through it all, Trump frustrated congressional oversight by asserting executive privilege and immunity and fighting subpoenas endlessly through the courts. He obstructed investigations, covered up offenses and attacked investigators and the media. And when his administration’s abuses triggered criminal investigations for violating national security laws, Trump pardoned the suspects or granted them clemency, even before trial. Even after leaving office, he endangered national security by continuing to hoard highly classified information at his private home.
Trump showed no remorse, instead claiming that all of his actions were authorized, justified by, and immunized from inter-branch interference by his plenary constitutional authorities. Under his extreme constitutional theory, any restraints coming from within the executive branch could be ignored under a theory of “unitary executive,” while any restraints coming from outside the executive could be treated as unconstitutional intrusions upon the President’s plenary national security powers. And candid interviews Trump has given during the 2024 presidential campaign vividly expose his intent to launch an even more monolithic imperial presidency on Day One that would nullify the rule of law for his second administration.
This constitutional challenge will not evaporate even if Joe Biden is re-elected. In the 21st century, new unprecedented threats—Ukraine, the Mideast, climate change, pandemics, cyberwarfare, and artificial intelligence—have provided even greater institutional incentives for Presidents both weak and strong to monopolize the foreign policy response; for Congress to acquiesce; and for courts to defer or rubber stamp, intensifying the interactive institutional dysfunction and disrupting the constitutional norm that national security policymaking should be a power shared.
Historically, Americans have asked the President to protect us from national security threats. But what should we now do if and when the President himself becomes a national security threat?
MORE AT THE LINK: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2024/06/17/is-our-president-a-national-security-threat/
They don’t even pretend there’s not the deep state.
https://keywiki.org/Harold_Koh
Harold Hongju Koh served as the Legal Adviser of the Department of State. He was nominated to this position by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, and confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 2009.
2009 15th Anniversary Fundraiser “Rooted in Movement”
Standing Up for Justice Awardee Rep. Luis Gutierrez
In 2009, NAKASEC held a fundraiser called “Rooted in Movement.”[1],[2]
Standing Up for Justice Awardees
Deepak Bhargava, Center for Community Change
The Honorable Luis Gutierrez, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Harold Koh, United States Department of State
Korean American Women In Need (KAN-WIN). . .
Phillip Burton Award
Harold Koh, Dean and Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, was the recipient of the Phillip Burton Award, at the 2006 Phillip Burton Immigration & Civil Rights Awards, from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, in the Bay Area.[3]
Obama appointment
In March 2009 Harold Koh was nominated[4]by the Obama administration for the position of Legal Advisor in the DOS and confirmed in June 2009.
A column in the March 31, 2009 online edition of Investor’s Business Daily IBD, entitled “Who Is Harold Koh?”, provided some details about how Koh viewed international law as being an important consideration in making and interpreting U.S. constitutional law. IBD termed Koh’s internationalist views and actions as being those of “an advocate of what he calls ‘transnational legal process’ and argues that that distinction between U.S. and international law should vanish.”
Koh, a former dean of the Yale Law School, according to IBD, thinks it is “appropriate for the Supreme Court to construe our Constitution in the light of foreign and international law” in its decisions.
On the death penalty, IBD quotes Koh as saying that “The evidence strongly suggests that we do not currently pay decent respect to the opinions of humankid in our administration of the death penalty. For that reason (italics added), the death penalty should, in time, be declared in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”
He has submitted amicus briefs in support of the argument that “international and foreign court decisions compelled the Supreme Court to strike down the Texas law (anti-sodomy laws), in the case “Lawrence v. Texas”.
Regarding Islamic Shariah law, IBD wrote that “He also values the opinions of the world’s imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says Koh in 2007 told the Yale Club of Greenwich that ‘in an appropriate case, he didn’t see any reason why Shariah law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States.’”
IBD also listed other leftist positions that Koh has taken on key issues, including the following:
Koh thinks America is the bad guy on the world stage. He blasted Operation Desert Storm as a violation of international law despite the U.N.’s blessing. {KW: It freed invaded Kuwait from Saddam Husseins forces}.
He supported the Sandinista move to get the International Criminal Court to force Congress to cut off funding of the Contras in Nicaragua. {KW: This funding helped the freedom fighters to continually defeat the Marxist army of the FSLN to the point that they were forced to agree to internationally monitored free elections, in which they lost decisively to the non-communist, democratic opposition forces}.
In 2004, after Operation Iraqi Freedom OIF had begun, Koh lumped the U.S. in with North Korea as part of an “axis of disobedience” regarding international law.
Koh says the Supreme Court is now divided between “nationalist” judges who believe our Constitution is the only one that counts and “transnationalists” who believe “we the people” should be changed to “we are the world.”
Koh did not get the position as the top Legal Advisor to the State Department.
Trump is a significant threat to the deep state
That’s why they tried to off him so many times.
Thanks.
These profs are a real piece of work.
Good info. Thank you for posting it.
I don’t know what this thing called “Harold Hongju Koh” is but it’s FULL OF $}{!T SPEWING OUT OF IT’S MOUTH !!!
The BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT EVER FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS THE demonratcommieblmantifaterrorscumfeminaziguanopathicpedophilegoatrapers THAT EXIST !!!
SOMEONE PLEASE CUT THIS DIP$}{!T’S TONGUE OFF AND SUPER GLUE & ADD SOME PL-400 CONSTRUCTION ADHESIVE TO ATTACH THE FINGERS TO IT’S FACE TO PREVENT ANY TYPING JUST FOR BACKUP.
Leftists always think the U.S. constitution is just a suggestion.
Leftists are not only an existential threat to the United States, they’re an existential threat to the world. They are the true national security threat anywhere and everywhere they gain a foothold in government and in a country’s culture. They simply corrupt and destroy everything good and viable they touch.
He obstructed investigations, covered up offenses and attacked investigators and the media.
The typical spin and dishonesty.
Well, they are pieces of something, but work is not it. 🤪
Nope - Trump is not.
I elected him to do this.
“If re-elected, could President Trump, by a single tweet, withdraw America from the United Nations, NATO, and every treaty and international organization to which the U.S. belongs?”
They talk like those would be bad things.
And will continue the attempts until success.
Everyone and anyone else who voted for him did so.
That’s why I keep him in my prayers every single day.
Well gosh, if our ELECTED representative(s) is not to have such power, then pray tell, who is?
That’s the part they don’t want to say out loud.
Lemme guess: The Yale University Press insists that he is?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.