June 3, 2010 12:37PM # John Ashcroft Returns to Heritage Foundation By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) --- SHARE Dana Milbank has an [article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060204238.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns) about an Ashcroft address at Heritage yesterday. Here’s an excerpt: > Ashcroft, in his own conciliatory gesture, implicitly acknowledged that he was on the wrong side in the *Hamdi v. Rumsfeld* detention case, in which the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration. “The Hamdi case was a bit of an anomaly because Hamdi was an American citizen, and it’s been considered settled law for a long time that American citizens always have the right in American courts to petition the court for habeas corpus,” Ashcroft allowed. Well, yes, it was settled law right up until Bush’s lawyers launched their [attack on the writ of habeas corpus](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2632). Nowadays those lawyers [play down](https://www.cato.org/2008/06/18/yoo-and-boumediene/) the dangerous legal positions they advanced during their tenure. [Cheney is the exception](https://www.cato.org/2009/05/29/cheneys-worldview/). ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).