Executive Privilege has been used by multiple Presidents over the years. I’m curious if it has been used as extensively by previous administrations as this one. No idea. Just asking.
Part of the argument for EP is that the Pres. needs honest discussions from his advisors and that they shouldn’t fear their advice becoming public matters. Sounds reasonable, but how does this relate to a case of fired prosecutors when the White House says they weren’t involved? How do you claim the need for secrecy about something you also claim not to have addressed?
The other question is if your advisors are giving you advice that may be illegal, shouldn’t you be firing your advisors for giving you that advice?
“I’m curious if it has been used as extensively by previous administrations as this one.”
By as extensively, do you mean as rarely? If my memory is accurate, up until a few weeks ago, the only use of executive privilege was to protect Clinton era papers.
Before Clinton (during the Lewinski incident), Nixon was the last president to use the executive privilege… but it has been used prior to that several times. I am pretty sure there is a precedent going back to Washington that grants the executive brand some leniency, but I don’t think that it’s clearly defined anywhere what exactly ‘executive privilege’ entails. But, I am pretty sure that it has not been exercised the way that is being used now…
Maybe you’re right about it not being used too often. But it was used in Cheney’s defense all the way to the Supreme Court on the energy meeting documents.
It was used by Pres Bush in regards to VP Cheney’s meetings with energy execs, and it was used again with regards to documents from Harriet Miers, a couple of times.
I was doing some checking and found that they also used it to try to keep Condi Rice from testifying as well, but then relented due to public pressure.
It is a big mistake to allow a coequal branch of government exercise authority to which they are not entitled.
If I get asked in a deposition about a discussion with my lawyer about a topic we never discussed, the opposing lawyer gets the same answer, which is to say no answer at all. Go pound sand. None of your business.
It was a mistake to allow Condi Rice to testify in front of Congress, even if it was tactically convenient at the time.
The offer to allow his aides to talk off the record is similarly a mistake. Congress should be told to go pound sand, just as Congress would tell the Executive were it to make inquiries of Congressional deliberations or staff discussions.
I am pretty sure there is a precedent going back to Washington that grants the executive brand some leniency, but I don’t think that it’s clearly defined anywhere what exactly ‘executive privilege’ entails.
Good memory, austin79. Indeed, President Washington did invoke Executive Privilege. If I recall, Vice-President Adams cast the deciding vote as President of the Senate to defend that privielege. Sec.-of-State Jefferson had his knickers in a twist about it too!
Not sure how accurate, but a quick glance corroborated what has been said in this thread so far.
There is an interesting reference note to a SC decision. The quote is worth a read at least. Oh, I’ll stop being lazy and copy/paste:
Chief Justice Burger, writing for the majority in US v. Nixon noted: "Whatever the nature of the privilege of confidentiality of Presidential communications in the exercise of Art. II powers, the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties. Certain powers and privileges flow from the nature of enumerated powers; the protection of the confidentiality of Presidential communications has similar constitutional underpinnings.United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) (Supreme Court opinion at FindLaw)
I don’t think it is in dispute that a President has Executive Privilege. It’s also not in dispute that a President has authority to fire and appoint US Attorneys.
I’ve heard on talk radio that the President can’t use politics as a measure for hiring or firing US Attorneys. Do you know if that is correct?
It would also appear that this administration has invoked the privilege more often than most, claiming the need for privacy. Not sure if there is anything wrong with that, just one more datapoint to use to assess their performance.
I think the problem with this administration is that they see it as an executive tool rather than an executive privilege. Just another weapon in the arsenal to forward their agenda. As all teenagers know, if you abuse a privilege it gets taken away. Time for these guys to play by the same rules as everyone else.
My bad, not trying to say there is doubt about the power.
But a snippet of the quote, “the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties” was interesting to me. Not sure if it 100% matches Art’s “pound sand” theory, but an argument can clearly be made.
My understanding is political party is not a valid criteria for hiring/firing. As long as the person is qualified and will properly execute their duties, they are good to go.
But the common practice of all Administration’s is to bring in their own people at varying levels of the system. Timing was more of the issue in this instance in what brought up the issue.
The “pound sand” technique is a great way to change the message of the day, to alter the cycle. Much easier to control the message if you can turn it into us vs. them. Which isn’t to say I think the Executive is right or wrong, just a good political strategy.
My understanding is political party is not a valid criteria for hiring/firing. As long as the person is qualified and will properly execute their duties, they are good to go.
So firing all 93 of them at once, like Clinton did was ok, but what Bush did was wrong?
Either hang Clinton as well, or leave Bush alone, but don’t hint that one was wrong and leave the other one out.
"So firing all 93 of them at once, like Clinton did was ok, but what Bush did was wrong? "
Well, the two things are entirely different, whether or not you agree with either articular case. These guys are Presidential appointees, so it’s not surprising that a new President would want to appoint new people.
My understanding is political party is not a valid criteria for hiring/firing. As long as the person is qualified and will properly execute their duties, they are good to go.
So firing all 93 of them at once, like Clinton did was ok, but what Bush did was wrong?
Either hang Clinton as well, or leave Bush alone, but don’t hint that one was wrong and leave the other one out.
Did Clinton say they were being replaced for performance reasons, contrary to all available evidence? Did Clinton replace his own appointees in the middle of a term?
By the middle of the term do you mean the president’s term or the Attorney’s term.
All of the fired attorneys had completed their four year terms in Bush’s case, not in Clinton’s case.
Clinton fired them all about three months into his term, mostly to get rid of the Little Rock and Chicago attorneys. That stopped the investigation of him in Little Rock, so instead it moved to Washington, we got Ken Starr and the rest is history.
My understanding is political party is not a valid criteria for hiring/firing. As long as the person is qualified and will properly execute their duties, they are good to go.
This is not true at all. Political affliation and loyalty is one of the basic factors (along with basic ability to do the job) in appointing US Attorneys. In fact, I heard one of the fired US attorneys inteviewed and he said if they had just come to him and asked him to resign so they could get another republican in there for a couple years to build his resume he would have had no problem with that. Its called “bench building” and both parties do it with political appointments and it is quite normal to cycle people through these jobs. At all levels of government, the higher, non civil service jobs are political appointees and the party in power has the right to insist on basic politcal loyalty and has the right to make employment decisions based on politics.
This matter became a mess because a) the admintration has been accused of fabricating the reasons the moves were made and more significantly b) at least for some of the AG’s there is an implication that they were being termed because of how they were handling specific cases. They also royally pissed off the termed AGs by saying these were performance based terminations which pissed them off enough that these republican AGs actually helped this story get legs.
Its one thing to dump an AG and put a new one in because you are groming the new guy to run for the Senate in 4 years but it is another to term an AG because he is refusing to prosecute someone from the other party before an election (as was the implication in one of the cases). By giving the appearance of lying, the adminstration has raised the spector of the latter being the reason for the terms rather than the former and fed red meat to Congress. Hence the subpeonas. Congress will argue they are investigating possible perjury by Gonzoles and they may actually win the exectutive privilege fight on that argument but it will take a long time.
Clinton fired them all about three months into his term, mostly to get rid of the Little Rock and Chicago attorneys. That stopped the investigation of him in Little Rock, so instead it moved to Washington, we got Ken Starr and the rest is history.
You are very consistent, I will give you that much.
Clinton, like Reagan, replaced all of the US Attorenys who had been appointed by the prior administration. Papa Bush didn’t do it because the US Attorneys were appointed by Reagan and deemed loyal. There is nothing nefarious in what Reagan or Clinton did, at least no more so than what normally goes on in this town.
“There is nothing nefarious it what Reagan or Clinton did, at least no more so than what normally goes on in this town.”
Agreed, and Bush erred by not doing the same thing.
It is pretty clear that when you roll into town, you really need to fire everyone. Maybe some you hire back. He came in on the Uniter, not a divider theme, which I always thought was a big mistake. As predicted, he just got slapped away.