Would they feel the same if he also authorized searches of individuals' homes?
Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
However, even if Mr. Levy does not win the first round, Republicans are holding a second vote to determine if he is authorized to be on their primary ballot.
"Post" had asked Mr. Nixon if he had authorized the Secret Service to tap the telephone of his brother, Donald Nixon, and if so, why.
Brennan, who advised Obama on counterterrorism for four years, is an agency veteran; it would not be surprising if he had authorized resistance to the Senate investigation.
When he was later asked if he had authorized an increase in their start-up packages, Zimmer grinned: "Of course I did.
Herman Cain, who seems to know as little about this issue as he does about foreign countries whose names are a teeny bit hard to pronounce, was asked if he would authorize water boarding, which President George W. Bush banned in 2006.
When Trump was asked if he'd personally authorized the dropping of "the mother of all bombs" on Afghanistan, he said this: "Everybody knows exactly what happens, so and what I do is I authorize my military.
If Bush thought he was being asked if he would have authorized the invasion based on what the intelligence was at the time (as opposed to what we know now), then the entirety of his answer -- in which he says he would have made the same decision that his brother made, while simultaneously acknowledging that it was a mistake -- is logical.
"Even if they're authorized," he told the daily Le Monde, "the public reaction is such that for the moment no one is going to use them".
