Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square ... I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.

To those in the executive branch who say ‘just trust us’ when it comes to secret and warrantless surveillance of domestic communications, I say, ‘Remember your history.’

Any decision to use lethal force against a United States citizen - even one intent on murdering Americans and who has become an operational leader of al-Qaida in a foreign land - is among the gravest that government leaders can face.

I think that what I'm doing is right. And election-year politics, which intensifies everything, is not going to drive me off that course.

I'm not going to let people who work in the United States Department of Justice have their characters be assailed without any basis.

Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad.

No individual or company, no matter how large or how profitable, is above the law.