Barbara Olson Quotes

This president has used the pardon power more sparingly than any other president in 100 years.

The Constitution gives the president of the United States an extraordinarily wide grant of authority to use the power of the pardon.

I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.

When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.

It’s hard for a President to make case for more powers when he has not used the powers he already has.

Is there any statute that gives the President authority in any way to change the spelling?

The powers that are surrendered [by Congress] to one President remain to be used by others.

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

Donald Trump is President of the United States and his National Security Council works for him. If he wants to fire someone, so be it.

I don't doubt that there are many presidential acts that would constitute obstructions of justice if anyone but the president engaged in them but which constitute legitimate exercises of presidential power when the president engages in them.

Presidential powers are not exercised by a body or group. The Constitution vests 'all executive power' in one and only one person - the president.

It seems with every new day, we have a new veto threat from the president.

There's several different forms of executive privilege. The one that is most absolute would be close advisers talking to the president himself.

That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

Here is the operating motto of the Obama White House: 'So let it be written, so let it be done!' Like Yul Brynner's Pharaoh Ramses character in Cecil B. DeMille's 'The Ten Commandments,' the demander in chief stands with arms akimbo issuing daily edicts to his constitution-subverting minions.

When we wrote the Constitution, the intention was to give the commander in chief the authority how to use the forces when you authorize him to be able to use the forces.

Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot.

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.

Protection really takes on the personality of the President.

I’m not your lawyer. But if I were in your shoes, I’d tell the President to burn the tapes immediately and then proclaim he’d done so as a matter of national security and executive privilege and out of an obligation to protect the office of the presidency.

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

Executive Privilege

The President [Theodore Roosevelt] has as much use for the Constitution as a tom cat has for a marriage license.

The presidency is not about easy choices.