Government Agency Says BUSH OVERREACHES On Executive Privilete

[kpete]

Government agency says Bush overreaches on executive privilege
Michael Roston
Published: Friday July 20, 2007



A report earlier this month by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that studies policy and legal questions for Members of Congress, found that President George W. Bush's recent assertions of 'executive privilege' to fend off Congressional investigators were dubious.

Morton Rosenberg, a Specialist in American Public Law at CRS, said that the assertion of privilege recently attempted by the White House went beyond restraints found in recent legal decisions.

"Recent appellate court rulings cast considerable doubt on the broad claims of privilege posited by() in the past and now by the Clement Memo," Rosenberg wrote in the July 5 report.

For instance, he wrote that "the unavailability of the information elsewhere by an appropriate investigating authority" could overcome an assertion of executive privilege.


The CRS report, which like all of the agency's publications has not been made publicly available, can be downloaded from the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

more at:
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Government_agency_says_Bush_overreaches_on_0720.html


So what now? Certainly with the outright contempt being shown for Congress by the administration, it won't be long before they send the contempt right back. Harriet Miers will likely be first up, for her refusal to testify about the U.S. attorney firings, followed closely by White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who, on behalf of the White House, has refused to turn over documents. The Chair of the Republican National Committee might also be cited with contempt for refusing to turn over White House emails on RNC accounts. Also under subpoena and the likely subject of an executive privilege battle are the documents related to the president's warrantless wiretapping program

But if the U.S. attorney is unwilling to enforce a criminal citation of contempt, all those matters would end there unless Congress took other steps.

There is the option of inherent contempt, where the House or Senate Sergeant-at-Arms would seize the offending witness. A kind of Congressional trial would follow. If found guilty, the person could be detained until compliance with the subpoena or until the session of Congress ends. As the Post notes, that hasn't happened since the 1930's and (much to the chagrin of many TPM readers) seems unlikely to happen now.

As Marty Lederman points out, another option remains: "Congress could file a civil action in federal court seeking declaratory relief, or an injunction requiring enforcement of its subpoena." No doubt the Bush administration would seek somehow to quash that option, too. That would start a likely long process through the courts of motions, counter-motions, and appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court.

more at:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003735.php