Understood. It is just I'm guessing (admittedly, quessing) that most Americans believe that if Bolton, Giuliani, Mick, Rick, and the Mikey P's could exonerate Trump, POTUS would have had those boys doing a conga line to testify. Trump's name is worth beaucoup bucks. He is brilliant with branding. It makes zero sense that he would allow himself to go down in history as an impeached president for the sake of preserving executive privilege if he could have presented evidence to prevent such from occurring (and, as a bonus, humiliate the Democrats).
Hopefully, not for a while. Need more hilarious riffs from insult comic Shecky Trump.
Need more "pencil neck" Schiff.
Need more "teeth falling" Pelosi.
POTUS has the best words.
Those points are undeniable. If there wasn't something to hide he would have allowed their testimonies. Executive privilege isn't in the Constitution and appears to be used by both side to protect them from corruption. Here again its a they did it and I will too. So every time a president wants to engage in corruption they have the implied Executive privilege. I would think that if it was written into the Constitution it would be for the protection of the government and country. Not to be used to protect a president from corrupt behavior.
Obama used it too for Fast and Furious.
The Constitution and Executive Privilege
by Mark Rozell|32 Comments
What does Executive privilege protect?
Executive privilege is the constitutional principle that permits the president and high-level executive branch officers to withhold information from Congress, the courts, and ultimately the public.
This presidential power is controversial because it is nowhere mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. That fact has led some scholars (Berger 1974; Prakash, 1999) to suggest that executive privilege does not exist and that the congressional power of inquiry is absolute. There is no doubt that presidents and their staffs have secrecy needs and that these decision makers must be able to deliberate in private without fear that every utterance may be made public. But many observers question whether presidents have the right to withhold documents and testimony in the face of congressional investigations or judicial proceedings.
Executive privilege is an implied presidential power that is recognized by the courts, most famously in the U.S. v. Nixon (1974) Supreme Court case. There are generally four areas that an executive branch claim of privilege is based: 1) presidential communications privilege; 2) deliberative process privilege; 3) national security, foreign relations or military affairs, and 4) an ongoing law enforcement investigation. I
n the current controversy over congressional access to Department of Justice documents pertaining to the Fast & Furious scandal investigation, the president and Attorney General Eric Holder are relying on the deliberative process privilege and also the ongoing law enforcement investigation defense.Not all presidents have used this power for the public good, but instead some have claimed executive privilege to try to conceal wrongdoing or politically embarrassing information.
In the controversy over President Barack Obama’s claim of executive privilege over DOJ documents, critics suggest that his action constitutes such an improper use of that power. The president and his defenders argue that he is instead protecting a core presidential function by stopping Congress from intruding into areas where it does not belong.
No president ever used the phrase “executive privilege†until the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. The phrase was not a part of the common language. Nonetheless, all presidents going back to George Washington have exercised some form of what we today call executive privilege. The first use of this authority occurred in 1792, when Congress demanded from the Washington administration information regarding the failure of a U.S. military expedition. Congress specifically requested White House records and testimony from presidential staff familiar with the event. Washington convened his Cabinet to discuss whether a president possessed the authority to deny information to Congress. The Cabinet and the president agreed that the chief executive indeed had such authority when exercised in the public interest. The president communicated this view to Congress in writing. Washington eventually decided to cooperate with the congressional inquiry and turned over the requested materials. But he had first laid the groundwork for the presidential use of executive privilege.
https://www.lawliberty.org/2012/07/12/the-constitution-and-executive-privilege/So this longstanding implied law will go on and on to protect all Executive Branch from whatever swamp dealings that they want to do.
