There could be that moment where information vital to impeach / indict Agent Orange could become a matter of national security … ironically because of Russia. Whenever that “wag the dog”moment occurs, probably after May (colleges being on break), we will return to the GWOT and Great Leader will abide no “national security” leaks, just as news blackouts have been hinted or at least made selective, however clumsy.
More likely should be other alternatives, but the Muslim-ban, among other EOs, has already given us a surreal approach to governance. And thwarting a criminal investigation by labeling prosecutors, traitors, is not out of the realm of trying to escape the greatest constitutional crisis since Watergate.
After all, who could have even imagined a “President Trump” despite the residue of an electorate with a passing familiarity with Manchurian Candidate narratives, even as they have had a resurgence in a number of media entertainment narratives. Using Pirro as a surrogate to attack Ryan is symptomatic of some piglet-fisted tactics from the Oval Office.
The privilege that allows the president and other high officials of the executive branch to keep certain communications private if disclosing those communications would disrupt the functions or decision-making processes of the executive branch.
As demonstrated by the Watergate hearings, this privilege does not extend to information germane to a criminal investigation.
(1990) Reagan's lawyers for the first time in the Iran-Contra affair asserted executive privilege in an effort to protect his diaries from disclosure,
Ronald Reagan waived all executive privilege at the start of the Iran-contra investigation, which arguably dealt with the very matters of national security and diplomacy in which executive privilege is most legitimate.
Of course, trying to hold PBO to a BATFE failure in order to score anti-gun control points is as strange as legal maneuvering gets, but we will enter uncharted territory depending whether the GOP decides to defect from Lord Dampnut.
Congress is handicapped in providing oversight of the president and executive branch, as legislative committees frequently appeal to the federal courts to get access to information…
The evolution of executive privilege in practice and in law has supported the basic principle that it must be asserted directly by the president himself or by high-level executive branch officers at the direction of the president.
In either instance, a rationale for the claim of executive privilege has been the norm. Furthermore, in the balancing test between the president’s claimed need for secrecy and Congress’s request for information, the presumption is in favor of openness without a clear rationale by the president….
But based on the Fast and Furious case, the outcome of such judicial appeals does not look good for Congress or for government openness…
We now seem to be at the point where a president does not have to make a formal declaration of executive privilege for information not connected to the White House to be walled off from congressional oversight.