i would put the final nail in, let me go back to that question. would you vote to overturn morrison? senator, i m not going to say more than what i said before. i think what you said before is clear. i think your enthusiasm for overturning morrison is unmistakable. [protesters in the background]. i want to repeat two things, senator that are important. humphries is the precedent that stands on independent agencies generally. two is the special counsel system both in the phh decision recently and in the old georgetown law journal article, i specifically said that that is the traditional way that criminal investigations proceed
question, i don t view the issue in the independent counsel statute and the morrison v. olson as dealing with a long passed statue and a an obscure not relevant issue. the reason you reached out and volunteered that you loved to overturn morrison v. olson isn t because scalia wrote a powerful and moving dissent. it s because of a view of the executive branch having all of the power of the executive branch in the president s hands that you have articulated across speeches, interviews, writings and opinion. an opinion this year. that s really your view of the executive branch. i ve not i ve never said that. i ve never said that, number 1. they re two issues here. i want to be very clear on them so people understand that, too. this is how i read your dissent in phh this year, arguing, advance ago unitary executive theory. and i refer to a single president.
settled. you know if we overturned it, it would mean the elimination of independent agencies. why did you go there? why did you have that conversation if this long-settled case is well-reasoned? what i said in the phh case is that humphries executor is the precedent. i ve applied it dozens of times. what concerns me constitutionally as a judge in the phh case is that the cfpb did not follow the traditional model of independent agencies and therefore departed from this traditional exception one might say to the idea that a single president controls the executive branch. i explained that, that the having one head of an independent agency both diminished presidential authority more than humphries executor and pose add serious threat to individual liberty and was a departure from a
written and that you decided as a judge about whether or not a president can be held accountable. i think the ability of a special counsel to conduct an independent investigation of the president is foundational to the rule of law. i ve said the same thing. i look forward to the next rounds i ve said the exact same thing. frankly, judge, your views about executive power that you have detailed, what you like to overturn and what limits you think there should be really leaves me concerned. it s because of our current context, because of the environment that we re operating in. i look forward to another round and more questions. and i look forward to it, too. what you said about special counsels is what i said and 99 phh said. thank you, mr. chairman. before i call or senator sasse, a couples things. one, in regard to independent counsel statute, at issue in morrison, that statute was never renewed and does not have any
when there s a conflict of interest in the justice department process. it s been settled law for 83 years now. early on you said that you would be willing to offer views on long settled cases. can you just tell me if humphrey executor was correctly decided? it s long settled precedented, yes. the key different here is whether you will say if something is rightly decided. i m struck about this, concerned about it because in your own opinion, in your dissent in phh, you went into a long criticism. you laid out a strong articulation of this unitary executive theory, the theory that the president has all the power of the executive branch, which is a radical theory that haas been rejected by the supreme court, i would argue and you say that humphries is long