neither are constitutional rights but liberals have no problem claiming the will of the people when it suits their agenda.
now that's funny, the repubs bellow that misnomer constantly especially when it's not!
85% of the population want stricter rights infringing gun laws so they should be. remember that one? we're just lucky you found out that number was grossly overstated and you didn't have control of the house. of course the dictator you call president stated he will just bypass legislative president to force through his agenda.
I'do the same thing in his place, knowing that the opposition party had, even before he was elected said openly that they would block ,hinder and oppose everything he did or tried to do...
Here is some history: six top cases of executive privilege since America was born.
George Washington
The early groundwork for an executive claim to secrecy was laid by the nation's first president, in response to the first investigation mounted by the House of Representatives. It came after the U.S. Army's defeat by American Indians in the Battle of the Wabash in 1791 in what is now Ohio. President George Washington and his aides decided not to hand over any papers or materials Congress requested, arguing that the branches of government ought to be separate. Washington eventually relented and provided Congress with copies of the documents it requested.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
President Dwight D. Eisenhower cited executive privilege, then only a concept in precedent, to prevent the Sen. Joseph McCarthy's communist-hunting committee access to transcripts between Army officials and administration officials related to the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.
The administration argued that the executive branch needed to be able to have candid exchanges when discussing important issues.
Richard Nixon
The most famous invocation of executive privilege -- and the reason its assertion by modern presidents is typically followed by intense scrutiny -- occurred under President Richard Nixon in 1973 and 1974, during his attempt to shield Oval Office recordings from a congressional investigation into the Watergate scandal.
The standoff made its way to the Supreme Court, which, in an 8-0 decision, established the president's legal right to executive privilege, but ruled that the importance of the Watergate investigation outweighed Nixon's claim.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan invoked executive privilege three times during his tenure as President, and is often credited with ushering in a new era of government secrecy by limiting Freedom of Information Act requests and imposing severe punishments on whistleblowers.
However, during the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan waived executive privilege, making his documents, diaries and entire staff available for congressional scrutiny.
Bill Clinton
President Bill Clinton claimed executive privilege a record 14 times, most notably during the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, when Clinton tried to block investigators from asking his aides to testify. A Federal judge struck down Clinton's claim, ruling that administration aides could be called to testify before Congress.
Clinton came under scrutiny for what many saw as a misuse of executive privilege to protect him and his aides form embarrassment when no national security or other public interest was at stake.
George W. Bush
George W. Bush administration[edit]
The Bush administration invoked executive privilege on six occasions.
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno,[2] the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001.[9]
Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. In a separate Supreme Court decision in 2004, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted "Executive privilege is an extraordinary assertion of power 'not to be lightly invoked.' United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7 (1953).
Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:
The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers. Furthermore, White House Counsel Fred F. Fielding refused to comply with a deadline set by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain its privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it, and provide logs of which documents were being withheld. On July 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee voted to cite Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for contempt of Congress.[11][12]
On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers and Taylor, Counsel Fielding effectively claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee.[13]
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required the President's Senior Advisor to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that "Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity...."[14]
Leahy claimed that President Bush was not involved with the employment terminations of U.S. attorneys. Furthermore, he asserted that the president's executive privilege claims protecting Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove are illegal. The Senator demanded that Bolten, Rove, Sara Taylor, and J. Scott Jennings comply "immediately" with their subpoenas, presumably to await a further review of these matters. This development paved the way for a Senate panel vote on whether to advance the citations to the full Senate. "It is obvious that the reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort", Leahy concluded about these incidents.[15][16][17][18]
As of July 17, 2008, Rove still claimed executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer wrote that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."[19]
