The Madness of Supreme Court Appointee George

What is going on with George Bush??? Is he in fact truly insane? He is claiming that every document or person ever created by or associated with his office can remain shielded in secrecy as part of his "Executive Privilege," a concept not even mentioned in the Constitution. I understand that the President should not be compelled to reveal, for example, that CIA operatives are infiltrating the Russian mafia in Odessa. But the privilege to conceal information in order to protect Americans is not carte blanche to abuse your power and then cover it up.

Presidents from Jefferson to Clinton have tried to use executive privilege to hide their dirty laundry. But what does it say that our current leader refuses any degree of transparency on any issue? Harriet Miers can't testify to her part in the politically motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys. E-mails about Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping of Americans' communications won't be released. Cheney's communications regarding collusion with the energy industry are secret. I understand that people need to feel free to advise the President openly without fearing that their thoughts will be subpoenaed. But when the focus of the investigation is alleged wrongdoing on the part of the President, he no longer has the right to conceal evidence.

This thing with Harriet Miers is making me crazy. George just looks like some madwoman scurrying here and there shrieking, "No no, you can't look there! No, not there either! Get out! Get out!" and waving his broom at the Congressional pestilence.

We need a president and a leader, not a paranoid lunatic.

Bush asserts executive privilege on wiretapping subpoenas
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg Published: June 28, 2007

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush moved one step closer to a constitutional showdown with Democrats on Thursday, as the White House asserted executive privilege in refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents related to the dismissal of U.S. prosecutors.

The move prompted Democrats to accuse the White House of stonewalling, and seemed to put the legislative and executive branches on a collision course that could land them in court. It was the second time in Bush's presidency that he has formally asserted executive privilege, the power first recognized by the Supreme Court in a 1974 Watergate-era case.

On Thursday morning, the White House counsel, Fred Fielding, telephoned the Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, which had issued the subpoenas, to inform them of Bush's decision. The president also intends to invoke executive privilege to prevent two of his former top aides, Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former political director, from testifying, officials said.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path," Fielding wrote in a letter to the committee chairmen, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan. He said the committees had issued "unfettered requests."

Conyers, in a telephone interview, called the letter "an appalling response to a reasonable question," adding, "This is reckless; it's a form of governmental lawlessness that is really astounding."

The letter seemed to lay the groundwork for how the administration will respond to a separate, unrelated, round of subpoenas, issued by the Senate panel Wednesday to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Justice Department for information about the domestic eavesdropping program run by the National Security Agency.

Administration officials said they had not decided how to respond to those demands, but experts said it seemed clear that the White House would refuse to comply there, too.

"Given the way in which both the U.S. attorney matter and the N.S.A. matter are now percolating through committees, I would be very surprised if there were not a major showdown over executive privilege," said Peter Shane, a law professor at Ohio State University and an authority on executive privilege. "It might not get to court, but there will have to be some very high pressure negotiations at a very late stage to avoid that."

The clash pits the congressional right to conduct oversight — in this case, an investigation into whether the Justice Department allowed partisan politics to interfere with hiring and firing of U.S. prosecutors — against the president's right to unfettered and candid advice from his top aides. Experts disagree about how a court might rule.

Shane says Congress has a strong argument, because it is making a specific claim that it needs information to conduct an oversight investigation, and "specific claims of necessity usually outweigh general claims" like the one the administration asserts, arguing the president's need for unfettered advice.

But David Rivkin, who worked as a lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, argues that the president has the stronger case, because Congress has only weak oversight authority in the area of hiring and firing U.S. prosecutors. "In this area, executive power is nearly absolute," Rivkin said.

The next step is for Democrats to decide whether to try to negotiate with the White House or to vote on a contempt resolution, a process that could take months and would lay the groundwork for sending the matter to court. Democrats did not say Thursday how they intended to proceed, although by the sound of their comments, negotiations did not seem likely any time soon.

"This is a further shift by the Bush administration into Nixonian stonewalling and more evidence of their disdain for our system of checks and balances," Leahy said.

The dispute dates from February, when Democrats began investigating the dismissals. The White House offered lawmakers access to certain documents as well as private interviews — not under oath, and without transcripts — with top aides to Bush, including Miers, Taylor and Karl Rove, the chief political strategist. The Democrats, demanding formal testimony under oath, rejected the offer. That led to the subpoenas, though Rove has yet to receive one.

Some Republicans, including Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a strong critic of Attorney Alberto Gonzales, have pressed the administration to agree at least to transcripts. But on Thursday, Specter backed off, saying now that the president has invoked executive privilege, Congress should take whatever information it can get "on the president's terms" to avoid a protracted legal battle.

"This investigation is lagging very, very badly," Specter said, adding, "and while the investigation is lagging, Gonzales continues to serve."

The first time Bush asserted executive privilege, in 2001, he inherited claims from the Clinton administration. Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, was demanding information from the Justice Department pertaining to the tenure of the former attorney general, Janet Reno, but the Bush administration refused, saying it would set a bad precedent. Burton backed down.