Three weeks ago, the White House took the notion of executive privilege to what I thought was its logical extreme. As it turns out I wasn’t even close.
The principle of executive privilege, while fluid, addresses a president’s need for candor from advisors. As the president recently said, “[I]f the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served.” But on March 22, the Bush gang went further, arguing that Congress not only can’t ask about internal White House communications, but that Congress lacks the authority to ask the White House questions at all.
The principle of executive privilege, while fluid, addresses a president’s need for candor from advisors. As the president recently said, “[I]f the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served.” But on March 22, the Bush gang went further, arguing that Congress not only can’t ask about internal White House communications, but that Congress lacks the authority to ask the White House questions at all.
White House Counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter [yesterday], told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, that the White House has not budged in its refusal to allow the panels to question several White House aides, including Karl Rove, about what they know regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, moving the two sides closer to a constitutional battle over the scandal.
Fielding also appears to be trying to head off an attempt by Conyers to obtain e-mails and documents from the Republican National Committee regarding the firings…. Conyers immediately countered Fielding’s letter, dismissing it as an attempt by Fielding to extend executive-privilege protection to e-mails sent by White House officials on RNC servers, which Conyers suggested was legally suspect.
“As I stated in my earlier letter to the Republican National Committee today, the Judiciary Committee intends to obtain the relevant emails directly from the RNC,” Conyers said in reaction to the Fielding letter.
“The White House position seems to be that executive privilege not only applies in the Oval Office, but to the RNC as well. There is absolutely no basis in law or fact for such a claim.”
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