The fast, the furious, and the executive privilege | Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit seeking to force the disclosure of the disputed Operation Fast and Furious records. It also filed a lawsuit to obtain documents about the pardon President Bill Clinton granted in 2001 to Marc Rich, a wealthy financier who fled from the United States to Switzerland shortly before being charged with multiple counts of fraud, racketeering and tax evasion. In response to the suit, incoming President Bush invoked executive privilege.
President Bush argued for the most broad interpretation possible of the long arms of executive privilege, Farrell said.
Recent administrations have attempted to expand the scope of the privilege, mainly through broadening the notion of deliberative process protections, according to an August Congressional Research Service report on presidential claims of executive privilege. Historically, executive privilege applied to the presidents confidential communications with close advisers, a protection known as the presidential communications privilege. The deliberative process privilege was developed under FOIA and permits agencies to withhold from disclosure pre-decisional advice, opinions and recommendations that are part of their decision-making process.
