Powers of the President of the United States The amount of military detail handled personally by the President in wartime has varied dramatically. George Washington, the first U.S. president, firmly established military subordination under civilian authority. In 1794, Washington used his constitutional powers to assemble 12,000 militia to quell the Whiskey Rebellion—a conflict in western Pennsylvania involving armed farmers and distillers who refused to pay excise tax on spirits. According to historian Joseph Ellis, this was the "first and only time a sitting American president led troops in the field", though James Madison briefly took control of artillery units in defense of Washington D.C. during the War of
The Prosecution of an American President Tate-LaBianca murders. Bugliosi also testified to the House Judiciary Committee in 2008 on Bush's alleged crimes. The film documents Bugliosi as he presents to a UCLA law classroom his case that former president George W. Bush should be prosecuted for the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians who died in Iraq. The film had trouble getting into production and according to left-leaning website "Daily Kos" it faced a "media black-out": it was scheduled to be on HBO but dropped shortly before broadcast. Due to the opposition or indifference of American companies, it was produced by Canadians,