Michael Fullilove Quotes

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.

You can't be citing Japanese internment camps for anything the president elect is going to do!

In going too far, they [presidents] have taken away the individual rights of American citizens.

Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas-where we all understood he wanted authority to act-but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

What [President Donald Trump] is doing is taking away the executive overreach that President [Barack] Obama did which we thought exceeded his powers.

If the President does it, it can't be illegal.

A President has a great chance; his position is almost that of a king and a prime minister rolled into one.

My advice would be to whoever is going after judges by name, whether it's the president or anybody else, I think it's a terrible idea. I don't think it's a very smart thing to do a Muslim ban.

I would hope that the Senate would do its job and confirm the nominee that President [Barack] Obama has sent to them. That's the way the Constitution fundamentally should operate. The president nominates, and then the Senate advises and consents, or not, but they go forward with the process.

The only person who counts in the administration is the president of the United States.

We don't think well of our presidents when they are serving. Even Kennedy, with such a short presidency, was beginning to lose his remarkable appeal to the American people when he was suddenly sainted by death.

I don't think we've ever had a president who has more disdain for Washington than Barack Obama does, and he does things with executive orders or rules that you don't even see.

It is ridiculous to sue the president on a Wednesday because he oversteps the law, as he has done a dozen times illegally and unconstitutionally, and then on a Thursday say that he should overstep the law, contradict the law that passed in 2008 and deal with this himself.

When the president acts in absence of a congressional grant of authority, he can rely only upon his own independent powers. When the president takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb.

That's one of the major lessons: no president should ever take this nation to war without full public debate in the Congress and/or in the public.

If a president can change some laws, can he change ALL laws? Can he change election laws? Can he change discrimination laws? Are there any laws, under your theory, that he actually HAS to enforce?

You can't really feel the direct change from one president to another versus people closer to you in local elections.

President Obama is the least transparent president in the history of this country.

We're breaking protocol here. That's the good thing about being President - I can do whatever I want.

The Daily Beast reports today that if Steve Bannon is denied a security clearance, the President could simply overrule that denial and order that security clearance.

What do we do with a president who can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don't agree with this part or that part?

There is also the issue of personal privacy when it comes the executive power. Throughout our nation's history, whether it was habeas corpus during the Civil War, Alien and Sedition Acts in World War I, or Japanese internment camps in World War II, presidents have gone too far.

I think where I get frustrated at times was the belief that the president can do anything if he just decides he wants to do it.

I am a president who also gives pardons. Usually my considerations are humane.

I think [Donald Trump] does understand that. We talked a great deal about the separation on power and the constitution. And we're very excited about what he's doing because what he's doing is pulling back what we see as unconstitutional executive actions from the past presidents.