Remember how Republicans insisted that a president deserves to have the advisers he chooses? When it's a Democrat in office - not so much.

Scott Horton in The Daily Beast says the Republicans are holding hostage two Obama nominations to keep the torture memos from being released:

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to "go nuclear" over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration's abrupt pull back last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration's darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward. (...)

The Justice Department source confirms to me that Brennan has consistently opposed making public the torture memos -- and any other details about the operations of the extraordinary renditions program -- but this source suggests that concern about the G.O.P.'s roadblock in the confirmation process is the principle reason that the memos were not released. Republican senators have expressed strong reservations about their promised exposure, expressing alarm that a critique of the memos by Justice's ethics office (Office of Professional Responsibility) will also be released.

"There was no 'direct' threat," said the source, "but the message was communicated clearly -- if the OLC and OPR memoranda are released to the public, there will be war." This is understood as a threat to filibuster the nominations of Johnsen and Koh. Not only are they among the most prominent academic critics of the torture memoranda, but are also viewed as the strongest advocates for release of the torture memos on Obama's legal policy team.

A Republican Senate staffer further has confirmed to me that the Johnsen nomination was discussed at the last G.O.P. caucus meeting. Not a single Republican indicated an intention to vote for Dawn Johnsen, while Senator John Cornyn of Texas was described as "gunning for her," specifically noting publication of the torture memos.

Even in its last throes, the Bush administration continues its uninterrupted lawlessness. As two recent stories by Charlie Savage of the New York Times revealed, President Bush ignored Congressional statutes requiring privacy disclosures by his Department of Homeland Security and non-discrimination in hiring by faith-based groups receiving federal funds. In twice turning his back on the rule of law, Bush again resorted to his favorite executive power-grabbing tools, the signing statement and "interpretation" by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

Savage, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2006 expose of Bush's unprecedented use of signing statements, revealed last Friday that the President is at again. The White House informed Congress that it is bypassing a law passed as part of the package of recommendation from the 9/11 Commission. Designed to prevent political interference with the Department of Homeland Security:

The August 2007 law requires the agency’s chief privacy officer to report each year about Homeland Security activities that affect privacy, and requires that the reports be submitted directly to Congress “without any prior comment or amendment” by superiors at the department or the White House.

But in a move ranking the Republican on Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter (R-PA) deemed "unconstitutional" and "dictatorial," DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff told Congress the administration would not "apply this provision strictly" because it infringed on the president’s powers. And as Savage detailed, President Bush used a signing statement to thwart the will of Congress - and the law of the land:

The Bush administration defended the decision not to obey the statute. Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman, said its legal view was consistent with what presidents of both parties had long maintained.

Mr. Ablin also said the administration had told Congress that the provision would be unconstitutional, but Congress passed the legislation - which enacted recommendations of the 9/11 Commission - without making the requested change. So the administration decided to sign the bill and fix what Mr. Ablin called its "defects" later.

In condoning illegal discrimination in hiring by religious charities receiving funds from American taxpayers, President Bush turned to his Office of Legal Counsel.

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