Sunday, June 4, 2017

The Limits of Executive Privilege

James Comey is scheduled to give testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, June 8th.  There has been discussion about trump declaring 'executive privilege'.  If he were to use this procedure, be assured that it will only be a delaying tactic.

The concept of executive privilege was first used when Nixon was in deep doo doo during the Watergate hearings.  Its purpose is  "to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government to access information and personnel relating to the executive branch."  With reference to accessing 'personnel', James Comey no longer works for the Federal Government.  He is a private citizen.  He can 'say' what ever he darn well pleases.  It's called the First Amendment.  With reference to information, I suspect that d. j[ackass] will claim that all memos written by Comey while he was the FBI director are property of our country and therefore fall under 'executive privilege'.

Okay, let's set up a scenario where trump claims executive privilege over these memos.  This will only be a delaying tactic.  "Once invoked, a presumption of privilege is established, requiring the Prosecutor to make a "sufficient showing" that the "Presidential material" is "essential to the justice of the case" (418 U.S. at 713-14). Chief Justice Warren Burger further stated that executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch's national security concerns."  The Supreme Court confirmed the legitimacy of this doctrine in United States v. Nixon.  

This places the revelation of these documents squarely in the hands of Special Counsel Mueller.  He will obviously want these memos and will have no difficulty, what so ever, in demonstrating that these memoranda are "essential to the justice of the case" while following the path of possible obstruction of justice.  Secondly, there are obviously no "national security concerns" that would be compromised by these documents being placed in the public record.  The only security concerns that will be impaired are those of trump and his butt-heads.  Their job security will be severely impaired.

So as you can see, if trump invokes the doctrine of executive privilege, it will only delay the inevitable.  The inevitable being, the truth being revealed. 

As is usual, there are varying stories coming out of the White House.  The stories are inconsistent with one another, and most likely by design.  Not that the various talking asses are given marching orders to put out different stories, that's just what they do, and trump set this up due to his chaotic mind and decision making processes.  When he chose these people to work for him, he had no idea how they would behave as part of a cohesive team and guess what, they don't act as a cohesive team.  I believe that a person associates with and hires employees that reflect that person's mindset.  Thus chaos begets chaos.

puppet-spicer, on Friday, would not discount the possibility of executive privilege being used:

"Obviously, it's got to be reviewed.  My understanding is the date for that hearing was just set. I haven't spoken to counsel yet. I don't know how they're going to respond."

They've been slowly allowing goebbls-conway out of her cage recently.  she told ABC's Good Morning America, “We'll be watching with the rest of the world when Director Comey testifies.”   To me, this implies that executive privilege will not be used.  goebbels-conway also said that "[w]hen Director Comey goes to testify, I think that will be a very clarifying moment,"  How a group of people can be so smug and blind as to think that Comey's testimony will "clarify" anything that will be helpful to trump and the rest of these boobs, is well beyond my understanding.  In reference to executive privilege she noted "the president will make that decision."    

Executive privilege is a doctrine that has only had very limited success once, when used by President Obama.  It did not work for Nixon and it did not work for Bill Clinton.  Bring it on trumpy boy.  Give us further proof of just how stupid you and those that advise you are.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/02/trump-use-executive-privilege-block-comey-testimony-spicer-says-white-house-hasnt-decided/102429120/


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-comey-russia-testimony-block-senate-hearing-kellyanne-conway-latest-news-a7769821.html


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege


http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/03/opinions/trump-cant-stop-comey-testimony-pate/







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