MUST HEAR RADIO: It Can’t Happen Here?

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As head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith led the team of lawyers that advises the presidency on the limits of executive power. During his tenure, he battled the Bush White House on the now-infamous “torture memos,” as well as on issues of surveillance and the detention and trial of suspected terrorists. Goldsmith resigned his post after nine months. He’s speaking publicly for the first time about why he resigned in a new memoir, The Terror Presidency — which also recounts what he witnessed in Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room, when Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, demanded that an ailing Ashcroft approve a secret program that was about to expire. Goldsmith was among those who objected to the program.