Man, Bannon just looks like he smells really bad. Glad I don’t have to be in a closed room with him.
And apparently Guiliani is really fragrant as well, reeking of sweat and whiskey farts. I bet that “War Room” was the stinkiest place on Earth that night.
They called it the War Room, but it was just one of Madison Cawthorn’s non stop coke fueled sex parties.
Executive Privilege is whatever the Supreme Court says it is, and they ruled on it in the 1977 case Nixon v. Administrator of General Services.
They also stated in their ruling on that case, “We reject the argument that only an incumbent president may assert such claims, and hold that appellant, as a former president, may also be heard to assert them.”
So, former presidents absolutely can claim executive privilege. But it holds very little power, especially if subsequent presidents (especially the current officeholder) are in disagreement.
In a sense, you are both correct and incorrect. Technically, a former president can credibly claim executive privilege, so to state that Trump cannot do it is not accurate. But since the court will give much more weight to Biden’s opinion, if he contests the claim it would likely be denied.
It’s probably most accurate to say that a former president’s claim to executive privilege, while not non-existent, is pretty weak. Probably weak enough to be meaningless. Here is an opinion that seems to sum things up pretty well:
Note that it doesn’t absolutely claim that executive privilege cannot exist for a former president (that would contradict the Supreme Court’s previous ruling) but that the privilege is essentially toothless.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar, just a guy using Google.
I’m also not a lawyer but I would expect the court (especially in the 70s) to land on the idea that it’s going to depend on the specifics. There is no one-size-fits-all option.
If the former president says that he’s trying to protect secret agents in the field from being killed, and the new president seems like he’s simply trying to distract away from his policy failures by highlighting the questionable behavior of his predecessor - well maybe you side with the former president. If the former president was trying to cheat the election, and the new president is trying to enforce election laws then maybe you side with the new president.
There shouldn’t be a hard rule on the matter. Reason and fairness should prevail.
Any bets that Trump is also trying for a legal gotcha with his infantile phrasing? “No, no, I totally said the Unselect Committee! He’s not allowed to testify before the Select Committee!”
Trump is way, way to stupid for that. And no judge or jury would ever buy it.
He’s too stupid to plan it, but petty enough to try to push it after the fact.
“What Trump’s gonna do, is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner, he’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”
“at 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that.'”
“If Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o’clock at night, it’s going to be even crazier. No, because he’s gonna sit right there and say, ‘They stole it. I’m directing the attorney general to shut down all ballot places in all 50 states,'” Bannon said. “He’s not going out easy. If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.”
I hope this forms the basis of a LOT OF QUESTIONS to Bannon from the Committee.
“Who is Steve Bannon? I never met the guy, and I barely even know him. Maybe he worked on my campaign, but I cannot recall. Anyway, he’s probably a loser and a liar anyway so I fired him myself” - Future Donald Trump statement.
If Trump does that, I suspect Bannon would just smile and nod. He’s a decrepit old bag of refuse, but he knows the game.
This.
And this.