Goldsmith was instrumental in withdrawing two infamous torture memos which, Goldsmith pointed out, violated the Geneva Conventions, the War Crimes Act of 1996, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

David Addington, Dick Cheney's current chief of staff, who was Cheney's his adviser at the time, reportedly replied, "The president has already decided that terrorists do not receive Geneva Convention protections.You cannot question his decision."

Goldsmith's 2007 book, The Terror Presidency details his experiences in The White House, including his discomfort with the continued effort to both expand the President's legal legal powers and exercise severe interrogation techniques on expected terrorists.

1. "The president and the vice president always made clear that a central administration priority was to maintain and expand the president’s formal legal powers."
2. (If President Bush's) "accomplishments are viewed more charitably by future historians than they are viewed today, (they will) "likely always be dimmed by our knowledge of his administration’s strange and unattractive views of presidential power."