John Yoo

UC Berkeley School of Law professors hold panel on Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee

John Yoo, Jesse Choper and Dan Farber quoted by The Daily Californian, Feb. 8. 2017

Yoo said Gorsuch’s past stances on religious liberty, such as in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case in 2014, are most likely the reason he was considered for the nomination.

“Yes, (Gorsuch) is qualified, perhaps better than any other nomination (Trump) has made to cabinet seats,” Choper said.

Gorsuch is someone who is open-minded and does not have a knee-jerk response, Farber said. He added he believes Gorsuch’s past opinions on the 10th Circuit have had a more “humane” tone than Scalia’s.

Trump’s executive actions overreach, says Bush justice department official

John Yoo interviewed by KQED-FM, Forum, Feb. 7, 2017

“I think it boils down to this straightforward principle: The President under the Constitution was supposed to be aimed at foreign policy and national security. … All these things that President Trump said he’s going to do are actually things that are vested in our Constitution in Congress, because they really are more about domestic policy than they are about the need to act quickly and swiftly in response to foreign emergencies.”

Executive power run amok

John Yoo writes for The New York Times, Feb. 6, 2017

Faced with President Trump’s executive orders suspending immigration from several Muslim nations and ordering the building of a border wall, and his threats to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, even Alexander Hamilton, our nation’s most ardent proponent of executive power, would be worried by now.

Gorsuch meets the highest standards

John Yoo writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 5, 2017

In choosing Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court, Trump kept his campaign promise to replace Justice Antonin Scalia with a judicial conservative, though one with intriguing wrinkles. If Democrats reflexively try to defeat Gorsuch, they will only escalate the confirmation wars to a new level while guaranteeing an even more conservative Supreme Court.

Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to fill Supreme Court vacancy

John Yoo quoted by Las Vegas Review Journal, Jan. 31, 2017

The Gorsuch nomination “is a great pick and a safe pick,” former George W. Bush attorney John Yoo opined. “It’s the most conservative person who could get confirmed. It’s very hard to see how the left is going to ‘Bork’ him,” said Yoo, now a University of California, Berkeley law professor, in a reference to the harsh vetting that killed the 1987 nomination of Judge Robert Bork.

White House says ‘No American citizen will ever be targeted’ after 8-year-old girl dies in Yemen

John Yoo quoted by US News & World Report, Jan. 31, 2017

“This is a big mistake,” Yoo says. “Such a policy would prevent the U.S. from targeting Anwar al-Awlaki, for example. It would create a force field around any U.S. citizen who joins al-Qaida or ISIS. Al-Qaida and ISIS leaders would immediately start recruiting Americans, even more heavily than now, and placing them in leadership positions.”

Mr. President, use a litmus test to choose your Supreme Court nominee

John Yoo co-writes for Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 2017

The president should focus like a laser on judicial philosophy. Trump must nominate a justice based on his view of the proper interpretation of the Constitution. The oath he swore —  to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — means that just as he wouldn’t sign an unconstitutional bill, he must not nominate a judge who holds views at odds with the Constitution.

Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist

John Yoo interviewed by WSJ Video: Opinion Journal: Opinion Journal, Jan. 24, 2017

“President Trump seems to be living up to his promise to try to look outside the usual corridors of power. He’s going out to the states to pick well-known figures amongst the judiciary out there, and I think that’s a very healthy sign that he’s trying to expand not just the ideology of the Supreme Court, but expand where people are coming from when they go to the Supreme Court.”

California versus Trump: What’s at stake?

John Yoo and David Carrillo quoted by Bay Area News Group, Jan. 14, 2017

During the Obama administration, Sacramento and Washington were on the same page. Now, observes John Yoo, a conservative professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, California is “going to know what it was like to be Texas for the past eight years.”

Taking stock of its rights is a smart move for any state whose policies are in conflict with Washington’s, said David Carrillo. … “If I’m the governor or the president pro tem of the state Senate,” Carrillo said, “right now I’d be laser-focused on the California constitution to figure out how I can circle the wagons around the issues Californians care about.”