Executive privilege is the presidential claim to a “right to preserve the confidentiality of information and documents in the face of legislative” and judicial demands. Although such a privilege is not an explicit right the Constitution grants to the executive branch, its justification is rooted in the doctrine of separation of powers. The argument is that if the internal communications, deliberations, and actions of one branch can be forced into public scrutiny by the other two co-equal branches of government, it will impair the supremacy of the executive branch over its Constitutional activities. This is because the president benefits from the executive branch’s advice and exchange of ideas , and forcing it all into public scrutiny can harm the integrity of these discussions. Additionally, it undermines the ability of the executive branch to hold sensitive military, diplomatic, and national security information.
Of course, because executive privilege is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, its exact scope and extent is ambiguous and disputed. After all, it was not until the Watergate scandal in the 1970s that such a privilege of presidential confidentiality was first judicially established “as a necessary derivative of the President’s status in the U.S. constitutional scheme of separated powers.” In United States v. Nixon (1974), the Supreme Court broadly established the reach and limits of executive privilege: the president can apply it when asked to share information pertaining to presidential decision-making that he believes should remain confidential, but it is not absolute and is subject to a balance of competing interests and needs of the respective branches of government. For Nixon, the interest of a criminal trial overcame his invocation of executive privilege, resulting in him having to hand over the tapes that brought down his presidency.
- from Penn Law Journal
The strong indication of impeachable offenses would overcome any similar Trumpian invocation. And, as defined above, EP would in no way protect activity done as a private citizen.
Really.
Of course all of which pertains to everything I wrote pertaining to McGahn.
FIFY.
LOL
A really good editor would have saved you from the embarrassment you just justified.
Presumably a good editor would have told me not to have further discussions on the issue of executive privilege with an intellectually dishonest idiot like you, who neither knows nor cares what it actually entails. Which is good.advice, but sometimes I can't help myself.
