On Dec. 23, 11 days before U.S. forces seized Nicolás Maduro, Justice Department lawyers signed a 22-page memo concluding the raid would “not rise to the level of war in the constitutional sense.” No judge reviewed it. Congress never voted on it. The public saw a redacted copy only after Maduro was in American custody.
Those lawyers work in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the most consequential law office most Americans couldn’t name. OLC’s own guidelines concede that its advice “may effectively be the final word on the controlling law.” I supported the Maduro operation. I also believe OLC’s work belongs in public view, because every opinion written for President Donald Trump becomes a precedent the next Democratic president will cite.
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