If Bush pushes it, watch the SCOTUS to weigh in.
Posted by Christopher at April 17, 2007 06:29 PMIt'll be very interesting to watch. And Abu G. may have gotten a couple days' reprieve before testimony, but so much more has come out in the last 24 hours, his goose is cooked. It'll be cathartic to watch him squirm - CSPAN's carrying it online, aren't they?
Posted by iamcoyote at April 17, 2007 06:45 PMIf Bush pushes, SCOTUS won't touch it with a 10-foot pole due to its thin conservative majority. And then it will be up to Congress -- impeachment -- but with a Senate divided in half, it will come to naught. Bush will get away with this.
The only way to stop the man is to let his funding dry up. Let him veto away. War in Iraq? Only if the troops are brought home. Funding for the general fund? Only if certain legislation they could write -- like requiring a special, independent counsel to investigate certain aspects of this administration -- gets in there, too. If Bush doesn't want the money, then let him veto.
Posted by Brian Bell at April 17, 2007 08:20 PMHummmmm. Is "Executive Priviledge" the same as "Executive Branch interest" as described by Flood? Somehow I doubt it. Why the parsing, I wonder?
Posted by ann at April 17, 2007 08:36 PMThere is no evidence that Executive Privilege applies to RNC communication and has no basis in law.
How ironic that Tony Snow, who thought that Clinton could not claim Executive Privilege, now thinks it's a great idea for Bush.
National Review’s Byron York:
(on Executive Privilege, here's what Tony Snow had to say).
I asked whether the president was perhaps overly confrontational at this stage of the game. “I don’t think it’s confrontational,” Snow said. “We feel pretty comfortable with the constitutional argument."
The White House, Snow said, is determined to avoid “hearings or the trappings of hearings” when White House officials talk to Congress. “They’re looking for hands up, cameras on,” Snow said of Democrats. “They’re talking about a show trial.”
How times have changed. As Glenn Greenwald first noted, Snow had a much different view of executive privilege in 1998, when President Clinton was using it to resist having his aides testify in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky saga. On 3/29/98, Snow published an op-ed titled, “Executive Privilege is a Dodge”:
Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public’s faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold — the rule of law.
Snow shouldn’t feel “pretty comfortable with the constitutional argument” because it’s pretty clear there isn’t one. The leading case on executive privilege is United States v. Nixon, where the Supreme Court found that executive privilege is sharply limited to:
Need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/21/tony-snow-executive-privilege/
As someone pointed out on another blog, Bush thinks that Executive Privilege means the right to be above the law.
Maybe the emails are in Sandy Berger's pants.
Posted by muckdog at April 17, 2007 08:46 PMIf the President himself is not directly involved, there is no Executive Privilege from what I understand. This should be very interesting. Obviously this WH wants to stall the Congress, just like Nixon. Is it any wonder why Bush wants to stack the courts of this Country and the Supreme Court with fascists pigs.
Posted by Judith at April 17, 2007 09:06 PMMuck, you and Tony Snow would make great friends. You think alike.
Posted by Judith at April 17, 2007 09:08 PMSteve--a correction is in order.
White House is not claiming "executive privilege"--even these bozos are not stupid enough to believe that this would fly. They are inventing a new category here--just as they keep doing with "enemy combatants" every time that courts reject their interpretations. They are demanding emails to be sent to them first for review because of "a clear and indisputable Executive Branch interest".
Legally, of course, there is no such animal. Executive Branch interest, no matter how clear and indisputable, does not outweigh a Congressional subpoena. But there is nothing "clear and indisputable" here--their claim has been that the external emails were in attempt to comply with the Hatch Act and, therefore, are supposed to have nothing to do with the executive branch. The reason why they want to delay this is obvious--every WH staffer who used external accounts for government business was breaking the law. If they admit that this is what happened, heads will roll. Hence the new category of privilege.
This reminds me of designer drugs that used to stay one step of the law until somebody figured out that whole classes of drugs can be banned instead of specific substances. Same issue with doping in sports. However, unlike those cases, no matter what the WH does now, they've broken the law and they can't get around that. Their only hope now is to run out the clock by dragging their feet in court. Then they can all move to Dubai on Haliburton's nickel.
Posted by buck at April 17, 2007 09:22 PM"even these bozos are not stupid enough to believe that this would fly." - maybe, maybe not. But they certainly are arrogant enough to try.
Posted by T2 at April 18, 2007 06:32 AMHow can claiming "a clear and indisputable Executive Branch interest" support Bush's claim to have given no "specific" instructions about any "specific" US Attorney?
Posted by mo2 at April 18, 2007 09:45 AMIn answer to my own question - The same way BushCo claims that they have no idea how the US got into the torture business. They indicate to subordinates and then deny involvement, leaving scapegoats with no trail back to themselves - until now.
There comes a time when you have to put your foot in someone's behind. This is that time! Congress should come unglued on these criminals!!! Stop playing these stupid games. Throw the book at these bastards!!!
Posted by smooth at April 18, 2007 10:16 AMWhich means they want to force a court challenge on this.
C...c..c..(cough!) Court?
I guess you mean the Court that just voted 5-4 against the legality of an occasionally medically necessary surgical procedure, with no exception for the health of the woman who might need the operation to be performed to save her from grievous harm, after all hope for her baby's survival has already been lost.
With that in mind, what do you suppose the 5-4 majority of that Court would care about the health of the, um, republic?
Posted by Ralph at April 18, 2007 05:35 PM