Latest in Executive Privilege
The Trump administration is asserting a new and extreme theory of executive privilege, under which the executive branch has absolute constitutional authority to protect and further the president’s constitutional authority to assert that privilege.
The Department of Justice has informed the House Oversight and Reform Committee that President Trump has exerted executive privilege over certain documents subpoenaed by the committee regarding the administration's decision to include a question about U.S. citizenship in the 2020 census. The letter can be read here and below.
It is unclear what authority the president has to direct former White House counsel Don McGahn, now a private citizen, to go along with the executive branch’s legal position in refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
At 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, the House Committee on the Judiciary will hear testimony from legal experts on the issue of executive privilege and congressional oversight. A video of the hearing is available below.
Witnesses include Kate Shaw of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; Paul Rosenzweig of R Street Institute, and a contributing editor of Lawfare; Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School; and Neil Kinkopf of Georgia State University College of Law.
The president has asserted executive privilege over the Mueller report and the underlying documents in order to be able to determine whether to assert executive privilege.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Bill Barr sent a letter to the president requesting that he invoke executive privilege over the Justice Department documents related to the Mueller report that the House Judiciary Committee has requested. The letter is below.
On Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd transmitted a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler notifying Nadler that the president was invoking executive privilege over the unredacted Mueller report in response to Nadler's scheduling of a vote to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt. The letter is below.
The issue of whether former White House Counsel Don McGahn’ will testify before Congress raises questions about executive privilege and the compelled congressional testimony of senior presidential advisers that the courts have only seldom, if ever, addressed.
How might things play out when a House committee issues a subpoena and, in response, the Trump administration refuses to turn over documents or allow an administration official to testify?
An overview of the definition, origins and scope of executive privilege and the process and legal and policy considerations that guide its invocation.