What is the point of White House press briefings anymore?
During his brief 30-minute appearance, Spicer spent a third of his time waxing on about the president’s “extraordinarily successful” trip to the Middle East and Europe before allowing reporters to speak. In the remaining 20 minutes, he dodged just about every question of substance
Stop expecting real answers from Sean Spicer
We didn’t even get a straight answer on “covfefe” today.
If it’s any consolation, if EP is going to be invoked it will likely be announced shortly after 9:30 p.m. EDT tonight.
Ultimately, the President can decide if he wants to evoke Executive Privilege. Whether or not that privilege holds up would be up to the courts, assuming someone (Congress) sued him to claim the privilege didn’t exist or was waved…
Depending on the exact wording of the legal argument claiming privilege, it might or might not hold up. Trump’s people don’t have a great record of winning legal battles over his Executive Orders, and the President having publicly spoken about something, or about Comey would likely make it harder for them to claim privilege, in the same way that his comments on the “Muslim Ban” hurt him repeatedly in court.
My understanding is that if the President says, “Comey told me this:” then he couldn’t then claim that his conversations with Comey were privileged. This is why President’s don’t usually cite specific conversations or advisers. They get advice, make a decision, then they can claim privilege over things like: who actually said what in the meeting, etc.
The fact that this President is openly flaunting conventions in communication policy is likely going to bite him in the ass. These practices are to protect the Office of the President, and the President himself. GW Bush, at the very least, knew how to work some of these systems to keep him from getting into legal trouble over some of the catastrophes of his tenure. Trump doesn’t know how to work the system, so the people who do are going to crush him in the same way that I, as an armchair lawyer equipped with Wikipedia, would not do well in, you know, an actual court of law.
Ah, but we did!
A pictorial analogy
The USA before trump
The USA now
This man doesn’t even have a passing familiarity with credibility.
He hasn’t so much as seen credibility from the window of a passing bus.
Well actually till Bannon tells him…
What better way to disprove Comey’s claim that Trump was trying to block the Russia investigation than to keep him from testifying?
Damn.
I thought to myself the meth hag was simply doing her usually clueless freelancing on-air earlier today.
Wonder if Trump’s Razor will kick in and they actually attempt this?
Well, the man fired Comey anyway.
It’s all about MAKING THE ANNOUNCEMENT. Keeping us in suspense. I so wish the news would ignore his “decisions to come” - it would be a like little death for him to not get that attention.
He will try of course, unless his lawyers are able to talk some sense into him. And he will fail, drawing even more negative attention and reporting down upon his paranoid little orange head.
@lestatdelc All the reporting I am seeing says the are indeed definitely considering this. My guess is the conversation has probably evolved into agreeing its a best a delaying tactic, but ultimately makes things worse.
…and he checks with FoxVixen Guilfoyle…
…and his cov----tweet…
Such an inane but very effective diversion from reality… from the WH and those perpetuating it.
Trump, it seems to me, would have 2 challenges to invoke executive privilege:
He has already commented publicly on the substance of the areas for which Comey is prepared to testify.
It isn’t clear to me that executive privilege can be asserted in an investigation into matters relating to the President where a special counsel has already been appointed and has given Comey permission to speak. It would seem to conflict with the ‘independent’ nature of the independent counsel. I think Trump could complain to Rosenstein and have Rosenstein act within DOJ rules to address it.
Another thing I would raise is the scope of privilege itself. I thought privilege was limited to the President and the people who advise and assist him/her in the performance of the President’s duties. I don’t think the FBI director was in that role in this circumstance. Comey was overseeing an investigation into the President and was therefore not in an advisory role.
So they are definitely doing it.
He has waived EP by his own actions and words, including what he has said on Twitter
Exactly right. And there might also be an exception if a crime is involved.
Trump’s Razor, y’all.
It won’t work and it would be insanely politically damaging to even try, so of course he’ll do it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…you have made my afternoon.