Charlie Savage, investigative reporter at the Boston Globe, won a Pulitzer Prize last week for his stories on Bush's use of presidential signing statements. What follows is an excerpt from a earlier interview on NPR with Savage about his investigative series.
NPR: Is there any pattern to the laws that the president has written signing statements for?
Charlie Savage: Many of the laws that he has challenged have involved rules and regulations for the military and national security. Most famously he's challenged the constitutionality of a law that forbids US interrogators from using torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees anywhere in the world. He says that as commander in chief, only he has the power to set aside that torture ban if he thinks it would assist in preventing terrorist attacks. He has also, however, challenged a range of laws which have nothing to do with national security. He's challenged numerous statutes requiring congressional oversight committees to be given information about how government is conducting certain areas of its business. He's challenged affirmative action provisions which require that the government try to make sure that minorities receive a share of contracts and grants and jobs. He's challenged whistleblower statutes which allow members of the affected branch to speak out about government wrongdoing without fear of losing their jobs if they tell Congress about it. He said that only he, as head of the Executive branch, can decide what information Congress receives. He's challenged safeguards against political interference in federally funded research. All of these things have nothing to do with national security but are also the kinds of laws that President Bush has said, over the past five years, he's not bound to obey.
NPR: One of the laws that he issued a signing statement for included the addition of an inspector general for Iraq. This is somebody who would have oversight on how money is being spent in Iraq and how projects are developing. The president wrote that "the inspector shall refrain from investigating any intelligence of national security matter, or any crime the Pentagon says it prefers to investigate for itself"! But isn't part of what the inspector general is investigating the Pentagon itself and how it's using money?
CS: That's correct. The Congress set up a broad-ranging inspector general. In fact, they did this twice: once for the initial phase of the occupation and then again after the former transfer of power. Congress set up an inspector general position that would have the power to go around and uncover any kind of wrongdoing by US forces and officials in Iraq. And they specifically said that no official could get in the way of any inquiry, investigation, or subpoena that this inspector general wanted to issue and, in one case also, that if anyone over there tried to interfere in any way, or did not cooperate with this person's inquiries, he was immediately to tell Congress about it. When President Bush signed the bills containing these inspector general statutes, he first of all, as you read, severely curtailed what kinds of investigations this inspector general could look at. And secondly, he said that the inspector general could not of his own will tell Congress anything without the permission of the president and his appointees.
The full interview is available at The Scribe.
