“The number of major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies was far greater than previously known, according to internal Bush administration documents released for the first time by the Justice Department yesterday [March 2, 2009]. Those policies were based on at least 10 legal opinions conferring broad powers on the president that the Justice Department later deemed flawed and ordered withdrawn, including several approving the military’s search, detention or trial of civilians in the United States without congressional input, according to the documents. …In releasing some of the discredited memos, including three that the Bush administration had argued must be kept secret as recently as November, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. declared that ‘Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness.’ ”
– R. Jeffrey Smith and Dan Eggen, “Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors,” The Washington Post, March 3, 2009