1975 June 8

Attorney General Levi: Presidents Have No Authority to Order Assassinations

 

In response to revelations that the CIA had undertaken secret plots to assassinate foreign leaders, Attorney General Edward H. Levi stated on this day that presidents do not have the authority to order the assassination of foreign leaders.

A year later, on February 18, 1976, President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905 banning assassinations by the CIA and other government agencies (among many other provisions).

The CIA assassination plots were exposed by the investigations of the Senate Church Committee, created on January 27, 1975; CBS reporter Daniel Schorr was the first to report the plots, which he did on national television on the night of April 28, 1975.

When he became Attorney General, Edward Levi promised to be politically independent (see his promise on January 27, 1975), and he followed through on that promise throughout his term in office. He became Attorney General in the wake of the Watergate Scandal under President Richard Nixon, which had severely tainted the Office of the Attorney General.

In 2005, the Justice Department marked the 30th anniversary of Levi’s appointment as Attorney General by creating the Edward H. Levi Award for Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity.

Learn more about Attorney General Levi: http://www.justice.gov/ag/bio/levi-edward-hirsch

Read “Restoring Justice: The Legacy of Edward Levi” here

Read the Church Committee’s Interim Report on CIA assassination plots:
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports_ir.htm

Learn more about President Ford and Attorney General Levi: Samuel Walker, Presidents and Civil Liberties From Wilson to Obama (2012)

Watch a documentary, Restoring Justice, on the legacy of Edward Levi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdEnL1A5c4I

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