So Bush has asserted executive privilege to prevent Harriet Miers and that political office lady from testifying to Congress, in defiance of subpoenas. He has asserted it to prevent documents from being delivered to Congress in defiance of subpoenas. He has asserted it to prevent the RNC from releasing emails ON A PRIVATE NON-GOVERNMENTAL SERVER to the Congress in defiance of subpoenas.

Today Bush made a broad assertion of executive privilege, essentially saying that the Justice Department will not be allowed to enforce the subpoenas against the White House.

Bye-bye Constitution...

Are there any people left out there who are not thoroughly convinced that the Bush Administration is nothing more than a criminal enterprise with ZERO regard for the law as it applies to them, or for the principles of divided government upon which our Constitution is founded?

If you still support this president's assertions of executive privilege does it bother you at all that a Democratic president would be able to assert the same claims in the future?

If you are not bothered by that prospect, then I can only conclude that it is because a) you believe that Democrats are too ethical and moral to do the kinds of things that Bush has done, or b) you believe that Bush & Co. will find a way to finalize their coup d'etat and there will never again be another Democrat elected president.

And you claim to love America...


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015639.php

A Privileged Few
07.20.07 -- 1:30PM
By David Kurtz

As long as we're going to be discussing the parameters of executive privilege in the weeks and months ahead, can we start by revisiting the now commonly accepted notion that the President can only get free and unfettered advice if those giving the advice know it will remain confidential?

Every talking head starts the discussion of executive privilege with a solemn nod to this totem. Heck, even Kevin Drum conceded this point in a post back in March:


Is that really true though? Literally, Kevin is right. Presidents do have a strong interest in this principle. But the President's interest, in this instance, is not in line with the public interest. In fact, executive privilege offers the President and his advisers a perverse disincentive to look after the public interest. Isn't the prospect of public exposure of hare-brained ideas, controversial proposals, and malfeasance and misdeeds the very sort of incentive the public wants looming over the President and his advisers, a dagger of accountability?

A friend of mine thinks we would be much better off subjecting the Oval Office to 24-hour TV coverage, like a CSPAN for the White House. I wouldn't go that far, but the point remains the same. The concoction of cover-ups, frauds, and misadventures in the White House over the last 35 years is precisely what should be exposed to public scrutiny. The logic, such as it is, for executive privilege would apply equally to governors, mayors, and officials at all levels of government. Yet we don't usually grant such broad privileges to other government officials.

Generally, the purpose of a privilege such as attorney-client privilege or doctor-patient privilege is to preserve a relationship that society puts more value on than enforcing the law. There is value in a client being able to fully and completely disclose their legal problems to her attorney without fear of prosecution. There is value in a patient being able to be honest and forthright with her physician without legal repercussion.

Still, there are limits to the privilege. The attorney-client privilege cannot be used to perpetuate a fraud. The doctor-patient privilege does not apply when the doctor has a reasonable apprehension that the patient may cause himself or another serious physical harm. As a society, we have placed a high value on certain relationships, placing them to a limited degree outside of the law, but only up to a certain point, at which time other values become paramount.

So back to the President and executive privilege. If a privilege is intended to resolve a conflict between competing interests in favor of the more important interest, then what interest is executive privilege protecting? There is, it seems to me, only one interest at stake: the public interest. The President is supposed to be acting in the public interest, and so are his advisers. The public disclosure of internal White House deliberations allows the public to hold the President and his advisers accountable to the public interest. If there is a legitimate competing interest here, I don't see it.

Some will argue that without executive privilege the President could be subject to harassment from Congress, that he would never get anything done because of constant subpoenas and hearings, that the effective carrying out of his duties could be undermined. But that's a different argument from the need for the President to get free and unfettered advice, and in any event, a court could resolve issues of harassment without having to grant a broad executive privilege. The scope of and burden imposed by subpoenas is resolved in courts every day.

I fully recognize that there is a basis in law for executive privilege. But both the legal justification for executive privilege and the policy justification rely mostly on the mistaken assumption that the public interest is served by the President being able to avoid public scrutiny in the execution of his public duties.

It's well past time to revisit that assumption.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/20/155957/402

Watergate Unbound
by Hunter
Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 01:10:03 PM MST

OK, let me see if I can sum this up.

There's a scandal in the government: the White House is being investigated as to whether it violated the law by expressly politicizing the operations of the United States Department of Justice, essentially rendering the very laws of the land into weapons of a political party. During the investigation as to whether the Justice Department has been illegally politicized, Congress seeks the testimony of individuals who worked at the White House and who were known to have engaged in the conversations in question. The president blocks their testimony, under claims of executive privilege. The president and his Justice Department -- the one being investigated -- then assert that they will refuse to enforce any legal actions against the White House or administration members as a result of those acts.

To repeat: in an investigation into the politicalization of the Justice Department by the president, an investigation that has turned up numerous accusations that members of the Department of Justice were directed to enforce the law unequally, the president is blocking the investigation... by ordering the Justice Department to not enforce the law.

Yes, I think that might count as "politicizing the Justice Department".


It is itself obstruction, there is no possible question of that. The difference between this and Nixon's infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" is that Bush, unlike Nixon, doesn't have to fire anyone to obstruct the investigation into possible illegal acts by his administration. (And to the extent he did, he already fired those people -- the entire point of the current investigation to begin with.)

Nixon fired the special prosecutor during Watergate, and his Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General resigned rather than conduct the plainly obstructive firing. Do we think Alberto Gonzales would have the same integrity, even during the brightest glimmers of what passes for his conscience? No: he's one of the individuals inventing these reasons why the Bush administration can repeatedly violate well-established laws. There's nobody in the top ranks of the Justice Department with the conscience or integrity to follow the law regardless of what Bush might think: there will be no resignations. In all his various appointments, Bush has always required loyalty only, never integrity or even competence.

After Nixon fired Cox, Congress was outraged, and even introduced bills to impeach. The movement to remove the president quickly became bipartisan, as members of both parties condemned the act and the cover up. Can we name a single current Republican legislator who would have that integrity, if the chips were well and truly down? Any one single "moderate" or "maverick" or "conscience-bound" or "patriotic" or "law and order" Republican who would, if the President were found to have broken the law, condemn the act by taking even the smallest concrete action against him? No. The president's party is racked with extremism in the form of abject fealty to even the most ludicrous of presidential assertions -- iron-clad assertions of executive power and omnipotence which will suddenly scatter like blowing leaves the first time they are invoked by a Democratic president.

Back in the days of Watergate, Nixon was opposed by Republicans of conscience: people within Congress and the Justice Department who, despite sharing a party affiliation with Nixon, knew that illegal acts were illegal acts, and would not condone them. The difference between then and now is that there are no such men and women surrounding the president or within his party. The president never cared to surround himself with people of integrity: his party has been purged of all but the most obsequious.

And that is why the scandal is still not recognized as a scandal in his own party or in the compliant arms of administration-friendly advocates: because in order for a violation of law or Constitution to be condemned, it requires people of integrity to condemn it. Any such voices, if they existed, would have already abandoned this president long ago; all that remain are sycophants nearly by definition.

So as of yet, violations of constitutional law remain seen as mere partisan squabbles. There is insufficient moral fiber within a hundred miles of the president for either press or party to declare it as anything worse.

This is a little bit of an exaggeration here. I think there are a handful of Republicans (and Democrats) who would place principle over party.

Legal mumbo-jumbo is too complicated for the average citizen, Iraq is 5000 miles away, and people can still afford ipods and a daily trough of commercialized junk food. Nothing to worry about.

Word. Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong people, but I figured that going to a university would mean running into more people 'connected' with the world. Some guy was talking about the Iraq war today and I asked him about Anbar and he had no idea what the recent developments were. I understand that my particular institution is incredibly apolitical, but still, if college kids don't care, who does?

Would maintaining this contempt be the most serious/ chargable offense yet? Of course this isn't actually impeachable because it doesn't read as well as breaking into Democratic Party Headquarters or getting a BJ, even if it were equally as serious. Intrigue and smut sell, legal wrangling probably does not.

And you stay above that fray by posting on a message board....presumably from your $1200 laptop in your air conditioned room.

Keep pissing on the unknowing sheep, Glorified.

I think this is far more serious than that. This is basically saying, "The Congress has absolutely no oversight authority over the Executive Branch." The Constitution is toilet paper and I wipe my ass with it.

There is a tool that Congress has at their disposal that may start getting some more press in the near future. It's called "Inherent Contempt". If a person, for example, ignores a congressional subpoena, the Congress can send the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House to go arrest that person and bring that person before the Congress for a trial on the charge of contempt of Congress. If found guilty that person can be held, just like on any other charge of civil contempt (think Judith Miller) until they comply with the subpoena, or until the session of Congress ends.

The other option, of course, is impeachment. Now, "high crimes" or no high crimes, everybody knows that impeachment is a political tool. If the Congress does not believe that they have the political support from the members of Congress, or more importantly from the American people, they will not impeach. If the political will is there however, I'm certain that some clever lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee or one of his aides will fashion a nice articles of impeachment that names PLENTY of "high crimes and misdemeanors" to charge any of these fucks.

Eventually, Congress will have to go down one of these paths, or else permanently abdicate the power of the Legislature for all time.

I find this Inherent Contempt business quite exciting. It would make for excellent visuals.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/20/185912/487

Why Inherent Contempt
By Big Tent Democrat, Section Law Related
Posted on Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 05:59:12 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Like most recent converts, I now have a certain zeal. My zeal is now for the use of inherent contempt power by the Congress in the face of the Bush view that a President's assertion of executive privilege in response to a congressional subpoena is beyond the purview of the courts. Before, I was very reticent about inherent contempt, for precisely the same reason I have reacted negatively to this unbound assertion by the Bush Administration that it is the President who decides whether a claim of executive privilege is valid -- it undermines our system of checks and balances. The Founders were primarily concerned with making sure the each branch was checked by the others. Inherent contempt is, in a way, the flip side assertion of unbound power in the Executive. But it becomes necessary here because the Bush Administration has chosen to argue against checks and balances. As Steven Benen writes:


In the face of this assertion, I believe the Congress has no choice now but to commence inherent contempt proceedings against those witnesses who refuse to testify based on the Bush claim of executive privilege. The claims, according to Bush, can not be tested in court. More.


What is inherent contempt?




It has not been used in 70 years because the Congress has wisely looked to the courts to resolve such disputes. But faced with an Administration that rejects court adjudication of such claims, the Congress, it seems to me, has been compelled now to revive this undesirable tool, because there are no other options.

Of course, this all must take place in the House because Republicans in the Senate would block any such attempt through filibuster.

So either house of congress can enact this, and does not require the other houses consent? That certainly makes it convenient.

Yeah. Well if the House judiciary committee issues a subpoena and it's ignored, that's who would try to enforce it.

The House really doesn't have the stature that the Senate does. If a Senate commitee issue me a subpoena, I'd be sure to show up. If the House did, I'd have to make sure it didn't conflict with my serials.

Yeah but I already admitted to all of that, dickwad. Nobody's perfect

Apology accepted.

Just keeping things in perspective....the average American isn't as bad as you might think, in my opinion.

Damn, I wish this board was around in 1998...

The Honorable John Shadegg
U.S. House of Representatives
306 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Rep. Shadegg,

On Wednesday, the House will be voting to cite Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten for contempt of Congress for failing to honor lawfully issued Congressional subpoenas. President Bush has asserted blanket executive privilege claims over their testimony, but much more troubling is that the President has asserted that purely on the basis of his own claim of privilege, the Department of Justice may NOT attempt to enforce the subpoenas. If the President's claims are legitimate, this would seem to be a matter for a federal court to decide, not for the President to decide unilaterally.

If the President orders the Justice Department to not fulfill its statutory duty to bring this case to a court, then the President has essentially declared himself above the law, and above the reach of the Congress. This assertion will outlive the current administration, and may be used by future Presidents to claim greater and greater absolute authority for themselves over the authority of the Congress.

I would ask you, as a Republican, which of these three statements would justify supporting the President in this case?

1) It does not bother me that a future Democratic President might assert a blanket claim of executive privilege against an investigation by Congress because, regardless of the President's party, I believe that the President should have more absolute power vis a vis the Legislature.

2) I believe that Democrats are simply too moral and ethical to take advantage of this expanded view of executive privilege to do anything that is legally questionable or politically dangerous to America.

3) I expect that there will never be another Democrat elected President because Karl Rove and others have plans to insure a permanent Republican Presidency for all times.


I'm going to assume that you don't trust the Democrats to have absolute authority over the Congress, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not in favor of a conspiracy to premanently divest the Democratic Party from power in some extra-Constitutional manner. So as a member of Congress, and a Representative of the People of Arizona, how can you support such a bald-faced and unapologetic seizure of power by the Executive Branch against the Congress and the People?

Barry Goldwater, and all traditional conservatives interested in limiting the power of the government in general and the federal government in particular, would not approve. This move is antithetical to Arizona's proud tradition of conservatism and libertarianism, and it is your reponsibility as our Representative in Washington to stand up for the Constitution of the United States, and for "We the People".

A vote against the resolution, a vote for President Bush and his "Unitary Executive" philosophy, can only be seen as a vote against the Constitution. It would be vote indicating that you are more interested in the Republican Party and the person of this President than you are in the Separation of Powers and in the very idea of the Rule of Law itself.

It would be a vote for Politics in direct opposition to the long traditions, and the long-term interests, of America.

I hope that you will be able to see clear to the truth of this situation and protect the free traditions of the West rather than to simply vote with your party to give this President, and all future Presidents, the right to spit in the face of the Congress.

Thank you very much,

--PunkDavid

Nice job on pulling out the Goldwater card. I've been reading more about him and am fascinated by his disdain for certain changes in the GOP over the past 25 years or so.

Well, Barry Goldwater lived in my district, and he's kind of like God around here, so it would be wrong to leave him out, especially when trying to appeal to a Republican.

BTW, the vote is going to be on Tuesday, got moved up on the schedule.

i am trusting you (or any other interested party) will update this thread when the vote is done? hopefully it will be top-of-the-page news on yahoo! but i don't know for sure and will therefore count on trusty RM to help me out.