Bush May Keep Asserting Executive Privilege After Leaving Office

[babylonsister]

Bush, Out of Office, Could Oppose Inquiries

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: November 12, 2008


WASHINGTON — When a Congressional committee subpoenaed Harry S. Truman in 1953, nearly a year after he left office, he made a startling claim: Even though he was no longer president, the Constitution still empowered him to block subpoenas.

“If the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the presidency is to have any validity at all, it must be equally applicable to a president after his term of office has expired,” Truman wrote to the committee.

Congress backed down, establishing a precedent suggesting that former presidents wield lingering powers to keep matters from their administration secret. Now, as Congressional Democrats prepare to move forward with investigations of the Bush administration, they wonder whether that claim may be invoked again.

“The Bush administration overstepped in its exertion of executive privilege, and may very well try to continue to shield information from the American people after it leaves office,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who sits on two committees, Judiciary and Intelligence, that are examining aspects of Mr. Bush’s policies.

Topics of open investigations include the harsh interrogation of detainees, the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, secret legal memorandums from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and the role of the former White House aides Karl Rove and Harriet E. Miers in the firing of federal prosecutors.

Mr. Bush has used his executive powers to block Congressional requests for executive branch documents and testimony from former aides. But investigators hope that the Obama administration will open the filing cabinets and withdraw assertions of executive privilege that Bush officials have invoked to keep from testifying.

“I intend to ensure that our outstanding subpoenas and document requests relating to the U.S. attorneys matter are enforced,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “I am hopeful that progress can be made with the coming of the new administration.”

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/washington/13inquire.html?ref=todayspaper

[shraby]

1. Under Nixon, executive privilege couldn't be used

to cover up crimes..this would apply to Bushco also.

[babylonsister]

2. Ya think? He's done a lot of things we thought weren't kosher and gotten

away with them. Who or what will stop him now?

[shraby]

3. He hasn't been challenged in court on the

matter of using it to cover up crimes. If he is, Nixon is the pre-existing determination.

[H2O Man]

4. Nixon was being

investigated by Congress for impeachable offenses; in that context, the federal courts have always upheld the right for Congress to subpoena things they could not hope for in a different context. Though possible, it seems highly unlikely that Congress will consider impeaching Bush after he leaves office.

It has been reported( Jonathan Mahler; After the Imperial Presidency; The New York Times Magazine; 11-9-08), that the Obama administration will reach a compromise deal with the Bush people on what they will be willing to turn over to Congress. Should Congress opt to -- and we surely should pressure them to -- they have the opportunity to take it further, using the case Hamdan v Rumsfeld as the precedent for forcing the release of that which Bush et al do not want to release.

[shanti]

5. could? could?????

come ON :eyes: