Sessions is such a disgusting weasel. The orange admitted that he fired Comey because of Russian investigation. I think that we tend to overanalyze everything. Comedians put it very simply. Here’s the gem:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju4z4ktpSoc
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We need to erect a monument to Sessions, the High Exalted Dwarf of the KKK, so that we’ll be able to mock him long after his death, preferably by firing squad.
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[quote=“lastroth, post:15, topic:63909”]
So can some one help me understand “executive privilege.” The President can claim executive privilege on matters that he talked about with whom, his cabinet, his staff, himself? Then why hasn’t Trump declared “executive privilege” for any discussions he had in regards to Come’s firing?
[/quote]Trump hasn’t claimed executive privilege because it would look like he’s trying to hide something. Besides, he has Sessions around to testify that he won’t answer because of some kind of non-existent and legally ridiculous ‘confidential conversation’ crap, thus making it appear that the racist Keebler elf is part of the effort to hide something on behalf of the fucking moron.
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Is Sessions arguing that as AG, he is the President’s personal counsel, and therefore, their conversations are privileged? I don’t doubt that Sessions and Trump view the AG’s position in that fashion.
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As I said earlier = there is no privilege between the president and the AG. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
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Isn’t he saying “confidential” rather than “privileged.” It’s a completely made up, unacceptable reason to not answer. It has no legal basis. He might as well say “I was wearing a baseball cap sideways on my head when we had that conversation, so I will not tell you what was said.” But, “confidential” sounds so much more lawyerly and valid. Like there’s some kind of stamp of importance.
See how awesome and impressive that is.
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Over at Fox today the main story is about the newly released docs(but old news nonetheless) showing that Comey began the preparation of his presentation exonerating Clinton of any wrongdoing in the email nothing burger/non-scandal in May of last year. The implication being of course that Comey was colluding with Clinton months before the investigation was over and therefore deserved a good firing. Didn’t realize it was a Fox faux news article that I had clicked on at MSN but the way it was written just smacked of “something is missing from this story”. Coincidental that Fox would feature this story the same day as Sessions testimony to the Judiciary Committee? Nope. Just the way they present the un-balanced, half assed stories to their rubes. And it works because it once again reinforces the meme that Comey deserved a good firing and Clinton could not be trusted. After all the internet says she did kill all those people by selling our uranium to Russia.
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Who cares what Sessions says or doesn’t say about Trump’s motive for firing Comey? Trump himself said he fired Comey over the Russia business!
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Okay guys, just a little primer which I hope casts more light than shade (i.e. isn’t wrong.)
A “privilege” is a legal right to withhold relevant evidence permitted in the service of some higher purpose than getting to the truth in a civil or criminal action. (Yeah, this is Congress, that’s a whole other discussion, because it isn’t a trial and the privileges apply, well, crabwise).
Some privileges are absolute, some are subject only to exceptions created by statute or a rule, some are what are called “qualified,” meaning they create a presumption of privilege that can be overcome by a showing of sufficient need in the interest of justice.
The Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination is an example of a privilege that is absolute if it applies at all. It cannot be overridden by any showing.
Most privileges, however, are founded on a perceived higher societal interest in the preservation of relationships founded on trust, confidence and an expectation of candid communications made and received in confidence. Among these are the privileges between a health care professional and patient, attorney and client, accountant and client, clergy and penitent, and husband and wife. All of these have their bodies of unique law governing when, and to what extent, they can be overcome. Doctor-patient is, in most states, comparatively easy to overcome. Husband and wife is, in most states, very difficult to overcome as long as both hold firm. Attorney-client can be inadvertently waived in many ways, cannot be used to enable ongoing criminal or fraudulent activity but is is otherwise absolute. Accountant-client applies only to tax matters and ditto on the crime-fraud exception. And so it goes.
There are three privileges you’ll hear about the federal government invoking–executive privilege, deliberative process privilege and the state secrets privilege.
The latter is the real bogie. It is absolute and is not one judges are generally even allowed to look behind to determine whether it is properly applied. The government puts in a statement under oath that disclosure of requested information will endanger national security and that’s it. Case closed. The potential for abuse is obvious. The only real check is the likelihood that improperly concealed information will leak or eventually be declassified, putting the privilege itself at risk in the future.
The other two are more like the “confidential relationship” privileges I discussed earlier. They are based in the need for there to be an expectation of confidentiality to enable candid deliberation based on complete information. Both may be set aside if urgency of the matter being litigated exceeds the need to keep the particular deliberation or communication at issue secret. When executive privilege starts bleeding into the national security turf protected by the state secret privilege, the presumption is very strong. When the discussion is about how to cover up wrong-doing, it is very weak. As one Richard M. Nixon learned in the early 70’s.
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The only thing that damned gollum says that I want to hear is what he testifies to under oath in front of Mueller’s grand jury; ditto for his farking boss.
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There is no attorney-client privilege. But the executive, deliberative process and state secret privileges may apply, depending on the content of the conversation.
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IF they apply here why wouldn’t they apply to every single word spoken in the Oval Office?
There shouldn’t be a privilege here. There just isn’t one. They might make one up but it’s made up as far as I’m concerned.
If you’re going to claim a privilege as the basis for refusing to answer, do you not have to state what privilege you’re invoking? Rather than just, “It was a confidential conversation (because we don’t want anyone to find out what we said).” To allow what Sessions is doing invites all kinds of abuse.
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I am a lawyer, though I don’t play one on TV.
It is contradictory, but also part of a game they can play because of the weird way executive privilege works. It’s a very limited privilege, and the President has to invoke it for particular matters. That’s why the Dems asked in advance for what matters Trump intended to invoke privilege with respect to Sessions’ testimony and the Comey firing. What Sessions and others before him do is say they don’t know if the President wants to invoke the privilege or not, but they are not going to answer because he might want to at some point. That’s not how it works, but the Repub chair if the committee is not going to call him out on it. If and when Trump is forced to actually assert the privilege, the assertion can be challenged in court. Which is why they are playing this game.
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Didn’t say they apply. Just said they could apply to some communications between a president any any an AG.
And, hey, all presidents always claim they do apply to every word spoken in the Oval, unless they waive it. But executive privilege is a qualified, not absolute, privilege. It’s easy to hid behind that blanket in front of Congress, because you know they’re rarely going to go to the trouble of bringing a contempt proceeding to test it. But it ain’t going to hold up in court. Not in a case where they’re using it to hide treason, it won’t.
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Yes. In court you have to do that. But this is testimony before a Congressional committee run by a Republican majority and it’s basically just a bet that he can tell them to go fuck themselves just because and they won’t go through the long, messy, tricky process of bringing a contempt proceeding. Not at this point, anyway.
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Especially when Sessions had been a member of the exclusive Senate club himself.
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iRight - it’s qualified and it has to be because if it’s too broad then it gives too much authority to the person claiming it.
Sessions already has lied to Congress and the public 3 times about meeting with Russians and he’s still the goddamn AG so god alone knows what they’ll let him get away with. They are so busy tearing every bit of the legal foundation of this country into pieces as it is.
Thank you for that explanation. It makes sense - though in a dodgy sort of way.
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Sure sounds like Jeffrey is headed for incarceration in his own right.