Senator Obama strikes me as being especially principled and above-board.
Still, I can easily imagine situations in which he has advisers that would like to be able to provide him their unvarnished views about domestic situations without their advice being made public.
Unless you picture an Obama administration is having no secrets or confidential deliberations of any kind? In which case… I believe your expectations are naive.
I certainly think it is meaningful - but it doesn’t say much. It certainly says that executive privilege is limited, but it also explicitly recognizes that it exists to some extent.
So Congress cannot simply compel testimony and expect that it has the last word on the subject. Either some agreement will be hashed out with the White House whereupon it waives privilege in exchange for other considerations - or the matter heads to the courts to weight the various claims.
An investigation is not a prosecution.
Are you posting as a Mod? If as a Mod you seemed to have stepped in a little late. There are a few Exec Priv posts ahead of me.
A continuing criticism of the Bush adminstration’s use of the privilege is that it isn’t specific enough. Most assertions of privilege (other than Fifth Amendment stuff) require specificity, and courts are willing to examine the assertion question by question and document by document. A court might do that here, too, although that would just require the administration to get a bit more specific. But cases after Nixon have imposed a sort of mandatory bargaining requirement as a condition of justiciability. Because of these cases, it’s pretty tough to get a ruling on the merits on an executive privilege issue. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL30319.pdf (see the discussion of the Post-Watergate cases).
Also, the tradition of executive privilege recognizes a distinction between Congressional oversight and a criminal matter that is in the courts. So far, there is little precedent on the point.* Id. * (beginning at pdf p. 6)
Thanks. I saved the pdf and will read it later.
Two reasons (at least)[ul][li]What goes around comes around. Feel free to believe that there will be no scandals in a hypothetical Obama administration. I can pretty much guarantee that there will be, and not all trumped up by Republicans, either. And Obama’s shining armor of virtue, while a bit dented here and there, is still his only response to charges of inexperience. But it will suffer another big dent if he starts flip-flopping about openness and honesty when his own ass, or that of one or more of his advisors, is on the line. []Executive privilege really does serve a purpose. Those of the Dems who still have some commitment to principle over politics realize this. There really are some things that the President can only do if he can do them without having them wind up on the front page of the New York fucking Times. Or on talk radio, for that matter.[]Also, see the first point.[/ul]If this is really about getting information, Rove and his lawyers have made offers such that they could get it. They don’t want information - they want to get Rove. [/li]
It won’t happen. Rove is just as smart and politically experienced as any of his inquisitors. If he shows up, he will stone wall and smile. They won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
Regards,
Shodan
No; but, perhaps, none Obama would be anxious to have remain secret after he leaves office.
Weeelllll . . . Thing is, up to now, this Administration (1) has been very, very careful to keep any issue relating to its claims of executive power from coming before any court of law, and (2) has devised unprecedented theories to the effect that the courts are not even competent to adjudge such matters. See this thread.
Cite?
If he’s offering it in unsworn form, not under penalties of perjury, that doesn’t count. This is, after all, an investigation into possible criminal conduct. Congress needs not merely information but evidence as a predicate to proceed.
It’s in the cite about Wasserman wanting to arrest him, and I believe he mentions it in the interview linked to above.
'Course you don’t get to decide what counts and what doesn’t, so pfft to that.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t. You don’t. Rove doesn’t. Congress does.
No, actually the courts do.
Regards,
Shodan
Not according to Bush/Cheney, they don’t. See post #49 & thread linked therein.
Which can be said about every single president. Not wanting to lose the privilege entirely, they will generally release information before having to defend privilege claims before a court.
Only when that is a safe course of action. If they haven’t done so in this instance, that’s one more good reason to be suspicious.
I believe that hope is also naive. But perhaps it’s I that is overly cynical.