McGahn's 30hrs of Mueller testimony cannot be quashed via Executive Privilege

[Roland99]

Link to tweet

Glenn Kirschner
✔
@glennkirschner2
Lots of folks asking this. Two points I think are worth making: 1. McGahn CAN NOT legitimately invoke executive privilege on any topics that were the subject of his 30 hours of interviews with team Mueller. Why? Executive privilege (EP) has been waived three times over.

Link to tweet

[StarfishSaver]

1. This is bigger than simply not "quashing" his 30 hours of testimony

Kirschner is correctly pointing out that, in allowing McGahn to testify to Mueller, he effectively waived any claims of executive privilege over anything that McGahn discussed in those interviews.

You can't let someone reveal information that was privileged and then try to re-invoke the privilege. Once it's waived, it's waived.

That means not just that McGahn's previous testimony can be shared. More important it means that he has to testify about any topic that came up in the Mueller interviews and Trump can't prevent him from doing so by invoking executive privilege - because he already let that cow out of the barn.

[NewJeffCT]

3. My point, though

was that McGahn may still try to invoke Executive Privilege when giving a deposition to the House and/or testifying before the committee. Yes, it may be bogus and legally invalid, but the House's main option would be to then make a criminal referral to DOJ and we know what will happen when it gets to Barr's desk...

[StarfishSaver]

4. That's no longer the only option - or even the main one at this point, though

Now that the court's involved and has issued a direct order to McGahn, if he defies it, he's in contempt of Court, not just contempt of Congress. That's a whole different ball of wax. The Court has enforcement tools Congress doesn't have.

The Court can order him fined or jailed. He'd also be in danger of losing his law license.

[NewJeffCT]

2. Glenn is replying to me there

I'm Jeff Blue Wave 2020 @NewJeffCT (same name as here on DU since 2003)

Glenn's pretty cool like that in responding to the occasional person that comments on his tweets.

[Roland99]

5. +1

Cool. I’ve had Twitter convos with Andrew Laurel...he’s rather engaging

And you have a new follower now.