--- title: Church Committee Redux? description: Christopher Hayes, the Nation's DC editor, has a long essay out explaining the history of the Church Committee, which was one of the most remarkable... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7192116/church-committee-redux/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2009-08-27T14:35:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-18T10:57:18.525Z article:section: Politics og:title: Church Committee Redux? og:description: Christopher Hayes, the Nation's DC editor, has a long essay out explaining the history of the Church Committee, which was one of the most remarkable... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7192116/church-committee-redux/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Church Committee Redux? twitter:description: Christopher Hayes, the Nation's DC editor, has a long essay out explaining the history of the Church Committee, which was one of the most remarkable... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Politics](/section/politics/) # Church Committee Redux? by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Aug 27, 2009 2:35 PM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Aug 27, 2009 2:35 PM UTC Christopher Hayes, the Nation’s DC editor, has a [long essay out](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/hayes/single) explaining the history of the Church Committee, which was one of the most remarkable products in the history of any Democratic system of checks and balances. As a result of the committee’s work, we now know, as Hayes [explains](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/hayes/single): --- > “” --- more Hayes argues that it is time for another Church Committee to investigate the excesses of the Bush Administration. He also gets at a central historical fact that is key to understanding the governing philosophy of Dick Cheney, who had lived through, with disapproval, the reforms that followed the Church Committee as a former Richard Nixon staffer and Gerald Ford chief of staff. The view of the Bush Administration, as demonstrated through their actions on a variety of legal issues, was that the Church Committee reforms, on foreign surveillance, on limiting executive power, on restricting assassinations, had been a mistake, dangerously limiting the power of the president to defend the nation against threats foreign and domestic. Even the rhetoric that Cheney used echoes the pre-Church rhetoric of the Cold War. Hayes points to the words of the Doolittle Report, which was given to Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, leading the way to many of the worst U.S. abuses. Said the report: --- > “” --- As Cheney put in on Meet The Press, just five days after the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York: --- > “” --- Read Hayes’ entire essay [here](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914/hayes). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7192116/church-committee-redux/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7192116/church-committee-redux/"},"headline":"Church Committee Redux?","datePublished":"2009-08-27T14:35:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-18T10:57:18.525Z","description":"Christopher Hayes, the Nation's DC editor, has a long essay out explaining the history of the Church Committee, which was one of the most remarkable...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7192116/church-committee-redux/","keywords":["Pentagon"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7192116/church-committee-redux/","name":"Church Committee Redux?"}}]}] ```