executive privilege

The New Mexico Independent’s Trip Jennings reports that Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) is getting in on some of that sweet, sweet executive privilege action:
The [New Mexico] Independent sought to view documents from the governor’s office from January through August 2006 that would have divulged with whom he had met in the months prior to the [...]

Funny how,  as Greg Sargent at The Plum Line notes today, the Obama administration hasn’t yet taken a position on pending legislation that would curtail its ability to rely on the “state secrets privilege.”
As I’ve been reporting here, the Justice Department has been relying heavily on the privilege to try to dismiss cases that could [...]

Carrie Johnson in The Washington Post today picks up on a problem we’ve been writing about at TWI for months now: when it comes to information about crimes committed by the previous administration, President Obama isn’t following through on his big commitments to “open government.”
“Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of forsaking campaign [...]

At long last, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Bush aide and adviser Karl Rove have agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on their knowledge of and involvement in the U.S. Attorney firing scandal.

It’s official: the House Judiciary Committee has once again subpoenaed Karl Rove, former President George W. Bush’s longtime adviser and aide, to testify before the committee on the politicization of the Justice Department and his involvement in the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D).
Rove’s prior refusals to testify were based on claims of [...]

As I reported earlier, President Obama’s Justice Department today stood up in court and asserted the so-called “state secrets” privilege to argue, like the Bush administration before it, that the case of five victims of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” and torture program must be dismissed.
But what is the “state secrets” privilege anyway?

President George W. Bush’s former aide and adviser, Karl Rove, has reportedly been instructed to ignore another congressional subpoena, this one issued earlier this week by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan). According to Newsweek, Bush’s lawyer, former White House counsel Fred Fielding sent a letter Jan. 16 to Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, instructing him that [...]

After Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) re-subpoenaed Karl Rove, former aide and adviser to President George W. Bush’s, to testify before Congress on his role in the Bush administration’s politicization of the Justice Department and prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D), Rove’s lawyer Tuesday asked the Obama White House for guidance, The Huffington Post [...]

Karl Rove, who previously refused to testify to his involvement in the politicization of the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney firing scandal as former President George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, was subpoenaed today by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.).
From the Committee’s press release, which is posted on The Huffington Post:
“I have [...]

TPM Muckraker talked to some experts to get their take on the significance of President Obama’s new government transparency orders, and they’re concluding that this might finally allow us to see some key documents that the Bush White House worked mighty hard to keep hidden.
Some of these documents detail high-level executive involvement in the politically [...]