Speaking of Presidents and Subpoenas... (A Bit of a History Lesson)

[Hissyspit]

History repeats itself, but never exactly in the same way. Nevertheless, in light of recent events, it might serve us and others well to review another incident involving a U.S. President, one who refused a subpoena.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Massacre

The "Saturday Night Massacre" (October 20, 1973) was the term given by political commentators to U.S. President Richard Nixon's executive dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus during the Watergate scandal.

Cox had been appointed by Richardson in May of that year, after having given assurances to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would appoint an independent counsel to investigate the events surrounding the Watergate break-in of June 17, 1972. Cox subsequently issued a subpoena to President Nixon, asking for copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office and authorized by Nixon as evidence. The president initially refused to comply with the subpoena, but on October 19, 1973, he offered what was later known as the Stennis Compromise—asking U.S. Senator John C. Stennis to review and summarize the tapes for the special prosecutor's office.

Cox refused the compromise that same evening, and it was believed that there would be a short rest in the legal maneuvering while government offices were closed for the weekend. However, President Nixon acted to dismiss Cox from his office the next night – a Saturday. He contacted Attorney General Richardson and ordered him to fire the special prosecutor. Richardson refused, and instead resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; he, too, refused and was fired by Nixon.

Nixon then contacted the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, and ordered him as acting head of the Justice Department to fire Cox. Richardson and Ruckelshaus had both personally assured the congressional committee overseeing the special prosecutor investigation that they would not interfere – Bork had made no such assurance to the committee. Thus, Bork complied with Nixon's order and fired Cox.

Congress was infuriated by the act, which was seen as a gross abuse of Presidential power. In the days that followed, numerous bills of impeachment against the President were introduced in Congress.

MORE DETAILS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon

... However, public outrage forced Nixon to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. Jaworski was charged with the responsibility of conducting the Watergate investigation for the government. On March 1, 1974 a grand jury indicted U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell and six other persons, all senior Nixon administration officials or members of the Committee to Re-elect the President. They were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice by covering up White House involvement in the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex. Nixon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

In April 1974, Jaworski obtained a subpoena ordering Nixon to release certain tapes and papers related to specific meetings between the President and those indicted by the grand jury. Those tapes and the conversations they revealed were believed to contain damaging evidence involving the indicted men and perhaps the President himself.

Hoping Jaworski and the public would be satisfied, Nixon turned over edited transcripts of forty-three conversations, including portions of twenty conversations demanded by the subpoena. James D. St. Clair, Nixon's attorney, then requested Judge John Sirica of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to squash the subpoena. Sirica denied St. Clair's motion and ordered the president to turn the tapes over by May 31.

Both St. Clair and Jaworski appealed directly to the Supreme Court which heard arguments on July 8...

Less than three weeks later the Court issued its decision. The justices struggled to write an opinion that all eight could agree to. The stakes were so high, in that the tapes most likely contained evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the President and his men, that they wanted no dissent. All contributed to the opinion and Chief Justice Burger delivered the unanimous decision. After ruling that the Court could indeed resolve the matter and that Jaworski had proven a "sufficient likelihood that each of the tapes contains conversations relevant to the offenses charged in the indictment," the Court went to the main issue of executive privilege. The Court rejected Nixon's claim to an absolute, unqualified executive privilege from the judicial process under all circumstances.


MORE RECENTLY:

http://www.answers.com/topic/presidents-and-subpoenas

When faced with investigations, special prosecutors, subpoenas, and impeachment proceedings, President William J. Clinton, for example, claimed that much of what went on in the Oval Office was protected by executive privilege and executive immunity, and that he and his aides should not have to respond to subpoenas. As was the case with President Nixon, President Clinton eventually accepted his and his office's place under the rule of law. Since United States v. Nixon, executive branch claims of immunity from the normal processes of the American legal system have been tempered by the fact that the constitutional demands of due process of law and justice are likely to outweigh claims of executive immunity from subpoenas.

[flamin lib]

1. Very good work. I'm book marking this one 'cause I think I'm

gonna need it in the very near future.

[flamin lib]

2. C'mon and rec this thing. It's really good work! nt

[MannyGoldstein]

3. I Remember That Saturday Night...

...watching the television. It was very weird - and clear that things were coming to a head.

[Hissyspit]

4. I lived in the D.C. suburbs at the time and didn't really understand how close to history

I was living. I was nine years old. I didn't quite get all that was going on, but I remember all the names.

[Emit]

5. What concerns me is that Cheney may have learned all too well from Watergate

He's running his own show now. Maybe he plans to run it the way he feels it should've been run in the past. IOW, maybe he won't back down. They've been putting their ducks in a row for some time now. For what?

Anyway, here's some more info to add to your topic, from John Dean:

The Nixon Shadow that Hovers Over the Bush White House
By John Dean

Not since Richard Nixon's presidency have the powers of Congress been in greater jeopardy. ...

~snip~

The Man Behind The White House Power Plays
Clearly, Vice President Dick Cheney is the force behind the White House's effort to enhance presidential power, and limit the powers of those on Capitol Hill. ...

Indeed, Cheney has all but admitted the point. "In thirty-four years, I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job," Cheney told ABC's "This Week" in January 2002.

His reference to "thirty-four years" is quite clear. About thirty-four years ago, in 1969, Dick Cheney joined the Nixon Administration - serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, and later the Office of Economic Opportunity. ... Cheney's reference to the erosion of presidential powers thus appears to relate to the Nixon presidency and Watergate, and then to the Reagan presidency and Iran-contra. ...

Nixon's Treatment Of Congress, and How It Likely Informed Cheney's Views
What then is Cheney's target? History suggests that it is probably what he sees as the expansion of congressional power vis-a-vis the president. ... this perception is probably what bothers Cheney most - and what he would most like to remedy. Cheney watched Nixon "throw down a gauntlet to Congress, the bureaucracy, the media, and the Washington establishment and challenge them to epic battle" - to quote the disgraced former president's memoirs. But for Watergate, Nixon would have succeeded.

~snip~

Nixon was ignoring Congress in four areas. First, he refused to spend money the Congress had appropriated for programs he didn't believe in, simply impounding the money. Second, he ignored Congress's efforts to get him to cut back or end the war in Vietnam, often increasing and widening the war when they were in recess. Third, he regularly invoked executive privilege, thus denying Congress information it sought as aid in its job of conducting oversight of the executive branch. Fourth, finally, and in what was probably his most offensive act of the four, Nixon implemented a total reorganization of the executive branch by executive order. The result was to give Congress no say over departments and agencies that had years earlier been created by Congress.

~snip~

Numerous New Laws Restore Congress's Powers
No new law was more important than the congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which Nixon was forced to sign (knowing his veto would be overridden) ... Also - overriding Nixon's veto - Congress passed its War Powers Resolution... When the Watergate Special Prosecutor took Nixon to court with a very narrow subpoena seeking his secret Oval Office tapes of conversations with his aides about Watergate, the Supreme Court used the opportunity to write the law of executive privilege. It ruled against Nixon, and forced his resignation.

~snip~

Cheney's Criticism of the Iran-Contra Investigation
When Dick Cheney was a member of Congress, the Iran-contra scandal erupted. During the scandal, it should be recalled, Cheney became President Reagan's principal defender in Congress. ... Cheney served as a minority member of the special Iran Contra Congressional Committee investigating the violation by the Reagan administration of the laws prohibiting sale of weapons to Nicaraguan rebels. In 1987, the committee issued its final report - charging the Reagan administration with "secrecy, deception and disdain for law." But Cheney dissented.

~snip~

Cheney's Current Tactic: Block Congressional Information Requests
Cheney's drive to halt what he perceives as an erosion of presidential power has been most apparent in his effort to block Congress from obtaining information about executive branch activities. ... Cheney is forcing the Government Accounting Office to go to Court to obtain even the most minimal information about the work of the Energy Task Force, forcing an unprecedented lawsuit which is currently pending. But this is only the most visible of Cheney's efforts; after all, he is a man who prefers to work behind the scenes. I'm told by Washington journalists and scholars who daily seek information from the executive branch as part of their jobs and research, that making GAO file a lawsuit is merely the tip of the iceberg. Far more broadly, Cheney seeks to place a blanket freeze on information. For example, provisions have been added to the USA PATRIOT Act, and appropriations legislation, that in effect create an unofficial "official secrets act."

Meanwhile, Cheney only extends his cheek in downplaying his own aggressiveness in creating a blanket of secrecy. It is the information-seekers themselves, according to the administration, who are the aggressive ones. Thus, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post recently reported that "(i)n the fight over the energy documents, the Bush administration has made an ... argument that it is the victim." And the vice president's lawyer is taking the position that Congress does not even have authority to institute legal action against the vice president or president.

If the GAO loses its lawsuit, that will virtually put Congress out of the business of oversight over the executive branch. (And even if it wins, Cheney will have successfully delayed disclosure.) A court loss for the GAO thus will mean that there are no real checks whatsoever on the president or vice president - for it is impossible for Congress, or the public, to exercise oversight over that of which it is not even aware. Such a judicial decision may provoke as serious a constitutional crisis as Watergate - though this time the federal judiciary, not the president, would be at fault.

~snip~

Cheney's efforts to block access to information appears more strategic than tactical. By that I mean Cheney is not fighting only a single, specific battle ... Rather, he has launched a war on Congress ... Cheney apparently wants to turn the clock back to the days of the Nixon administration, before Watergate, when Nixon sought to make Congress merely another administrative arm of the presidency.

~snip~

http://hnn.us/articles/printfriendly/1192.html

And, remember, we do not necessarily have enough votes to override any of Bush's vetoes and the Supreme Court is now in their favor. Has Cheney planned this all too well? Scary, IMHO.

[Hissyspit]

6. I'm quite sure he has. And, yes, I believe most of this he has had planned.

Here's hoping he missed something.

[sojourner]

7. k&r!

[Hissyspit]

8. Daylight kick. n/t

[blondeatlast]

9. Kick because history matters so very much. I was just a budding

political wonk, not yet a teen, when the Saturday Night Massacre happened but somehow I knew then that it was a historical moment (possibly because my dad was such a political wonk).

[sendero]

10. Unfortunatelly...

... that was BEFORE the SCOTUS was packed with idealogues and the Justice Department headed by an ass-licking lackey.

It wasn't easy to counter back then, it will be nearly impossible now, especially with the jelly-spined asses we're currently stuck with.

Bush will totally get away with it, you wait and see, just like every damn thing else.

[Hissyspit]

13. There are always the unforeseen factors that pop up.

I won't tell you are wrong though - I think it is thoroughly possible that, though we have the worst, most corrupt, most incompetent, most anti-Democratic administration in the history of the republic, everyone is just gonna flub around, get no justice done, and then look back and say "Duh... What just happened?"

Let's hope this country finally gets around to doing the right thing.

[AllegroRondo]

11. funny seeing Robert Bork's name in there

he's the judge that sued the dry cleaner for millions over his pants.

[Hissyspit]

12. No, he has the suit about slipping and falling at that club.

It's still hypocritical of him. He is, for history, a son-of-a-bitch "yes man" for all time.

[AllegroRondo]

15. ah, you're right.

it was Pearson with the pants.

[focusfan]

14. Bush is an arrogant son of a bitch

he thinks he can get away with anything and i think Congress
would be crazy to let him get away with this.this is
unconstitional

[Hissyspit]

16. .

[demo dutch]

17. Note the word "public outrage forced ..." Sadly, there is no public outrage!!!

[Hissyspit]

18. .

[Hissyspit]

19. .