Neal Katyal Quotes

I don’t know if President (George W.) Bush understood how extreme some of the arguments were about executive power that some people in his administration were making.

Incivility is not the disease. It is the symptom. Partisanship is the disease…. When your highest duty is to your party, the public interest becomes subservient.

There is always going to be dissention between the Pentagon and Congress.

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

The American system is so constituted that it produces a conflict between the Executive and Congress every time the Executive tries to be positive and strong.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

As members of Congress, we may disagree with the administration's position on foreign policy matters, but the fact remains: the Executive Branch is tasked with handling diplomatic matters.

There are a lot of presidents in both parties - including President Obama - who had strong claims of executive privilege that I certainly think went too far.

A government full of Democrats would rather have you be a Republican, and a government full of Republicans would rather have you be a Democrat, than have you oppose both.

The Clinton administration hated us, and it was a terrible struggle with them. I think that they felt if they didn't play, they could strangle us in our crib.

The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General.

We need to be calling out the flaws and misguided decisions of the Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration.

In the aftermath of President Obama's re-election, members of both the administration and the media trumpeted that Obama had received his long-sought mandate. Obamacare, Americans were told, was the law of the land. It could not be changed; it could not be stopped.

If right and left are competing to be the biggest victim, who is competing to be the government?

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

The Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

I am not responsible to the Senate and will not submit my actions to them.

I do not believe that we [Congress] should allow him [the President] to nullify acts of Congress by executive fiat. There is not one syllable in the Constitution which authorizes the President to exercise such power.

When a President asserts constitutional powers he needs to be pretty certain he has those powers.

We have moved toward a kind of scorpions-in-a-bottle Government where you have two branches [executive and legislative] that don't understand many of the legitimate needs of the other branch.

The Constitution provided an invitation to the President and Congress to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.

We have not found a way to give Congress control without depriving the President of essential power.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.