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.

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.

An overview of the definition, origins and scope of executive privilege and the process and legal and policy considerations that guide its invocation.

The spectacle of DNI Coats and NSA Director Rogers fumbling for unconvincing excuses to avoid answering Senators’ questions about whether President Trump asked them to intervene to halt the Russia investigation obscures the fact that they could have asserted a proper basis for doing so.