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On his first day in office, President Obama put former president Bush on notice. His administration just released an executive order that will make it difficult for Bush to shield his White House records--and those of former Vice President Dick Cheney--from public scrutiny by invoking the doctrine of executive privilege.
During the campaign, Obama promised to "nullify attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult." (A transition spokesperson promised Mother Jones essentially the same thing when we asked a few weeks ago.) That was a reference to former president Bush's infamous Executive Order 13233, which gave current and former presidents and vice presidents, along with their heirs, unprecedented authority to block the disclosure of White House records. But Obama's taken his campaign promise a step further. While revoking 13233, Obama has also put forth a far stricter interpretation of executive privilege:
[T]he Executive Order on Presidential Records brings those principles [of openness and transparency] to presidential records by giving the American people greater access to these historic documents. This order ends the practice of having others besides the President assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the President will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the Attorney General and the White House Counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.
Originally posted by ZindoDoone
They tried this with Nixon and what they got was a warning that anything they release without proper court orders would be considered treason. No former President has ever had this happen. If they could not do it for Slick Willy they can't for Bush. They are treading on real dangerous ice here.
Zindo
Originally posted by ZindoDoone
They tried this with Nixon
U.S. v. Nixon
The Supreme Court addressed 'executive privilege' in United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case involving the demand by Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski that President Richard Nixon produce the audiotapes of conversations he and his colleagues had in the Oval Office of the White House in connection with criminal charges being brought against members of the Nixon Administration. Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records.
******SKIP******
However, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the President has an "absolute privilege." The Supreme Court stated: "To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of 'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III." Because Nixon had asserted only a generalized need for confidentiality, the Court held that the larger public interest in obtaining the truth in the context of a criminal prosecution took precedence.