In a July 2006 New Yorker piece, veteran reporter Jane Mayer put Addington at the core of controversial Bush policies — and sketchy Administration attempts to avoid constitutional law.
Addington played “a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror,” Mayer wrote. “Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it.
“Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside.
A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration’s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, ‘all Addington.’ Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was ‘an unopposable force.’”
In the same article, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted as saying, “He doesn’t care about the Constitution.”
Powell saw Addington as being at the center of the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which most legal scholars argue should have gone through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
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