Can a president really order a former employee to ignore a subpoena? On what basis? He can claim privilege, ask the former aide to comply and they can comply. But how does the president order the silence of a former aide?
Harriet Miers won’t even show up tomorrow to invoke privilege. Once again, I don’t know the law on this. But when you’re under actual subpoena I would think it’s some higher level of contempt not even to show up to invoke the purported privilege.
Update: More here on that. Sure enough, Conyers says that Miers’ not showing up could “trigger contempt proceedings.”
TPM Reader AB thinks the White House needs to keep Miers from even showing up …
I just read about the order to Miers not to attend the hearing. Bush may not order her to stay away but he can protect the attorney-client privileged information she may have, if any. She must at least show up and assert the privilege. Were she to divulge any of the client’s secrets, she could lose her law license. But she cannot just skip the hearing.
I suspect that the White House fears that a lot of what she knows is not protected by the privilege. For example, if a third person is present, communications between a client and her attorney are not privileged. Just as Taylor today testified about some matters not covered by the White House’s claim of executive privilege, so would Miers have to testify about non-privileged information she had, presumably a lot more that Taylor had.
At a certain point it just becomes plain old obstruction.
Late Update: TPM Reader JVW dissents on one point, and I seem to remember he’s right on this …
I’m not certain, but I believe that the White House Counsel does not enjoy privilege with regard to communications with the President. It’s not a regular attorney/client relationship. In fact, Clinton’s WHC had to file a motion with the Supreme Court asking for the privilege to be extended to the President/WHC relationship after lower courts had ruled that no privilege obtains. Look up In re Lindsey. I do not believe that it has been overruled. Also relevant, Hilary Clinton spoke to a personal lawyer in the presence of a WHC and the 8th Circuit ruled that the WHC was a third party for purposes of negating the privilege. See In re Grand Jury Subpeonas Duces Tecum. So maybe that’s the problem for the President. Executive privilege wouldn’t preclude testimony about when and where and in whose company Miers spoke to the President, only the content of those conversations. She might have been, as WHC, a third party present at an otherwise privileged conversation setting legal strategy. But to be honest, I think the Administration is just asserting privilege for privilege’s sake in an attempt to thwart the will of Congress by any means necessary.
Michigan AG becomes the highest level GOPer to slam the Libby commutation.
I guess the virtual castration mechanism the White House uses doesn’t stretch that far?
On the same day President Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence, Victor Rita showed up at the slammer to start serving his 33 month sentence for the same offense.
His lawyer explains how cool that is.
Hmmm. A very knowledgeable emailer says it’s a felony …
Invoking a privilege is one thing, but telling a person not to show up in response to a subpoena — if only to actually invoke the privilege — is quite another. It’s not just worse, it’s a felony under federal criminal law. See for yourself.
18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505 : … Whoever corruptly … influences, obstructs, or impedes … the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress … [s]hall be fined under this title, [or] imprisoned not more than 5 years … or both.
18 U.S.C. Sec. 1515(b): As used in section 1505, the term “corruptly” means acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including … withholding, [or] concealing … information.
I can’t vouch for the legal interpretation. But it seems like decent prima facie case and the emailer knows his stuff.
This is fun. Watch these two successive promos for shows on Fox News Channel and tell me whether you can figure out which is the ‘real’ news show and which is the ‘fake’ news show …
As I mentioned earlier today, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has a special talent for appointing people to key positions just before they are exposed in career-ending personal transgressions or major acts of criminal conduct, or both.
But don’t count John McCain out of this race.
Only today, Florida state Representative Bob Allen (R), who is co-chairman of McCain’s Florida campaign, was arrested in a Titusville park restroom on charges of solicitation after he approached a plain clothes police officer and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20.
It’s conceiveable to me that with the recent news of McCain’s flagging campaign this is actually an attempt on the part of the Arizona senator to up the ante on Giuliani. As you know it was only Monday night when Giuliani Southern regional campaign chair, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) admitted to soliciting prostitutes.
In this case, McCain’s campaign is going beyond having a prominent supporter solicit prostitutes to actually having one who appears to be a prostitute, if perhaps only on a freelance basis.
This is a tit for tat that doesn’t seem likely to settle down soon. So let us know if you see any more breaking news.
Late Update: TPM Reader JP notes, perhaps not surprisingly, that the Rainbow Democratic Club, a Dem gay rights group in Central Florida gave Allen its “worst of the worst” rating for his votes on gay issues.
Late in More Ways Than One Update: Okay, it seems like McCain’s hat trick may be in some jeopardy. A number of TPM Readers wrote in questioning whether Allen was the payor or the payee. Indeed, when I first saw the articles I thought that it was Allen who was paying $20 for a blowjob. And my first thought was, “‘Wow, they’re not kidding about cutting budgets in the McCain campaign!” But when I looked closer it seemed that it was the other way around.
For instance, the lede in the Orlando Sentinel reads “State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20, police said.” Now, the logical reading of that sentence to me is that he offered to perform the act in exchange for the money. Otherwise you’d say that he offered $20 to be able to … etc. The Tallahassee Democrat says that “he solicited an undercover male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform oral sex for $20.” Again, to me ‘offering’ sounds to me like he’s offering sex for money. Meanwhile, the AP says that “State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday after offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer.”
But TPM Reader HM was convinced the money was to pass in the other direction. And he finally came up with this video report from WFTV in Orlando. And the report seems to say clearly that Allen “offered [the police officer] $20 for a sexual act”. So at this point it seems I was led down the garden path by some ambiguously worded wire reports.
In the broader picture, I don’t think there’s any denying that this puts Rudy back on top in the GOP campaign ‘john’ battle. As for Rep. Allen (R) he insists that the incident was a “very big misunderstanding” and told reporters ”I’m not in anyway associated with that they are saying, this is disgusting,” as he was escorted out of the Titusville police station to be transported to Brevard County Jail. And the evidence would seem to bear him out, seeing as only months ago he introduced this bill in the state legislature to crack down on “lewd & lascivious offenses.” His state House bio, which lists his ‘recreational interest’ as ‘water sports‘ might seem to point in the opposite direction. But presumably these phrases can have more than one meaning.
Interesting idea. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has started what he’s calling a ‘distributed virtual townhall’ on how to end the Iraq war. The idea is basically to have a virtual conversation that lives in the world of viral video. Here’s a quick youtube video from Miller explaining the concept and how you can participate. Check it out.