Durbin calls on DOJ to withdraw certain legal opinions on presidential war powers

Former Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin is asking the Biden administration to withdraw or release some 20 legal opinions regarding presidential war powers after Donald Trump indicated Tuesday that he was open to using military force to take Greenland or the Panama Canal.

“Congress and the executive branch may have differing views in some respects as to the separation of powers between them,” Durbin wrote in his letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. “However, these opinions are concerning outliers even by the standards of the executive branch’s own legal doctrine.”

Durbin’s request spans a host of legal opinions, ranging from 1953 all the way to “a 2020 memorandum articulating one of the government’s justifications for killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.”

In addition, Durbin asked the department to release records related to “the domestic use of the U.S. military.”

“The American people have a right to know how the Executive Branch interprets the President’s constitutional and statutory authority to use the military domestically,” Durbin wrote.

Trump was asked at a press conference Tuesday if he would rule out economic or military coercion to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. He replied: “I’m not gonna commit to that. No. It might be that you’ll have to do something.”

“I can’t assure you — you’re talking about Panama and Greenland — no, I can’t assure you on either of those two,” Trump added. “But I can say this: We need them for economic security.”