Bush to Invoke Executive Privilege

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is prepared to invoke executive privilege if Congress demands to see documents about prosecutors' decisions in three Clinton-era cases, administration officials said Wednesday.

The claim, if made, would be Bush's first known use of executive privilege, a doctrine recognized by the courts to ensure presidents can get candid advice in private without fear of it becoming public.

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales recommended that Bush make the privilege claim if a Republican-led House committee subpoenas the memos or seeks to question Attorney General John Ashcroft about them, the officials told The Associated Press.

The House Government Reform Committee prepared subpoenas demanding the disputed documents and planned to serve Ashcroft on Thursday, setting up a possible legal showdown.

The officials said the administration has researched at least four other instances in which executive privilege was cited involving similar documents.

Executive privilege is best known for the unsuccessful attempts by former Presidents Nixon and Clinton to keep evidence secret in impeachment investigations.

Rep. Dan Burton (news - bio - voting record), R-Ind., the chairman of the House committee, said the Bush administration's stance threatened Congress' ability to oversee the executive branch.

``While I have a great deal of respect for the attorney general, he has announced a new policy that broadens executive privilege,'' Burton said. ``If this unprecedented policy is permitted to stand, Congress will not be able to exercise meaningful oversight of the executive branch.''

Burton's committee has for months been seeking Justice Department (news - web sites) memos about prosecutors' decisions in cases involving Democratic fund raising, a former Clinton White House official and a former federal drug enforcement agent.

A senior administration official said while the decisions were made during Clinton's presidency, Bush had accepted Gonzales' recommendation and was prepared to invoke the privilege and create a clear policy that prosecutors' discussions should be off-limits from congressional scrutiny.

White House lawyers and the president concluded ``the fair administration of justice requires full and complete deliberations and that most often can best be accomplished when prosecutors think through their options in private,'' the official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

The claim would be the latest in a string of efforts by the new administration to restrain the flow of information to Congress about private deliberations.

Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) has rebuffed requests by the General Accounting Office (news - web sites) and a Democratic congressman to divulge information about people he met with and how he helped develop Bush's energy policy.

And a Senate committee chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news - bio - voting record) was initially turned down when it demanded several documents detailing the administration's decision to review regulations enacted by Clinton. Eventually, the administration allowed the committee to review the memos, but an aide to Lieberman said officials sent a clear message they would assert their right to withhold documents.

Ashcroft indicated last week the administration intended to reverse the practice of sharing prosecutors' deliberative documents with congressional committees.

Several such memos were shared with Congress during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently in the 1990s such documents were turned over to the Whitewater, fund-raising, pardons and impeachment investigations.

But the concept of extending executive privilege to Justice Department decisions isn't new. During the Reagan years, executive privilege was cited as the reason the department did not tell Congress about some memos in a high-profile environmental case.

And then-Attorney General Janet Reno (news - web sites) advised Clinton in 1999 that he could invoke the privilege to keep from disclosing documents detailing department views on 16 pardon cases.

``Prosecution is a core executive function and from that starting point, a claim of executive privilege is quite a good one,'' said John Barrett, a former Iran-Contra prosecutor who now teaches law at St. John's University.

But Noah Feldman, a constitutional law professor at New York University, said courts would have to balance the president's right to confidential advice against Congress' right to oversight. Feldman said the fact that several prosecutorial decision-making memos have been disclosed to Congress in the past without apparent harm to the presidency could influence the debate.

Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta, said most new administrations test the limits of congressional oversight then conclude it is better to reach a negotiated settlement.

``Ultimately the public loses faith in fair administration of justice from over-claims of executive privilege, especially in matters that don't have to do with direct advice to the president,'' Podesta said. ``It appears to me that every administration has to learn that the hard way.''

Surely, Gore would have returned to the Mexico City policy on international abortion funding.

Let's see...has the funding really changed that much or is it just being "laundered" to appear that way?

BUSH’S "MEXICO CITY" ABORTION POLICY DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF "IS" IS
ABORTION AND ABORTION ADVOCACY WILL STILL BE FUNDED

Previously, your editor has pointed out that President G.W.B.’s decision to restore the Reagan "Mexico City" policy, limiting the provision of your tax dollars flowing to overseas population control organizations was less significant than assumed by many well-intentioned pro-life leaders, in that, while the Bush policy does limit the direct use of U.S. subsidies to perform and promote abortion, nonetheless, the pro-abortion recipient organizations still get the money to which they are not Constitutionally or morally entitled, with these funds available to offset their other expenses, so long as the U.S. Treasury dollars are assigned to a separate bank account.

Now, in reviewing the policy as enunciated in the Federal Register (Vol. 66, No. 61, Thursday, March 29, 2001) Presidential Documents, "Memorandum of March 28, 2001: Restoration of the Mexico City Policy" over the signature of President Bush, it is clear that this is even less a pro-life victory than first believed.

"FAMILY PLANNING": YES, "ABORTION": NO --- WITH EXCEPTIONS

GWB: "The Mexico City Policy announced by President Reagan in 1984 required foreign nongovernmental organizations to agree as a condition of their receipt of Federal funds for family planning activities that such organizations would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations….

"It is my conviction that taxpayer funds appropriated pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act should not be given to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations…except as otherwise provided below...."

ABORTION FUNDING OK IF NOT "A METHOD OF FAMILY PLANNING"

"The recipient agrees that it will not furnish assistance for family planning under this award to any foreign nongovernmental organization that performs or actively promotes abortion as a method of family planning in USAID-recipient countries or that provides financial support to any other foreign nongovernmental organization that conducts such activities. For purposes of this paragraph (e), a foreign nongovernmental organization is a nongovernmental organization that is not organized under the laws of any State of the United States, the District of Columbia or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. ..."

FUNDING OF "POST-ABORTION" CARE IS AUTHORIZED

"Abortion is a method of family planning when it is for the purpose of spacing births. This includes, but is not limited to, abortions performed for the physical or mental health of the mother, but does not include abortions performed if the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or abortions performed following rape or incest (since abortion under these circumstances is not a family planning act)."

FUNDING OF POST-ABORTION SERVICES PERMITTED

"To perform abortions means to operate a facility where abortions are performed as a method of family planning. Excluded from this definition are clinics or hospitals that do not include abortion in their family planning programs. Also excluded from this definition is the treatment of injuries or illnesses caused by legal or illegal abortions, for example, post-abortion care. ..."

GWB: "SAFE, LEGAL ABORTION" REFERRAL IS PERMITTED

"([P]assively responding to a question regarding where a safe, legal abortion may be obtained is not considered active promotion if the question is specifically asked by a woman who is already pregnant, the woman clearly states that she has already decided to have a legal abortion, and the family planning counselor reasonably believes that the ethics of the medical profession in the country requires a response regarding where it may be obtained safely).…"

GWB OK’S ABORTION ADVOCACY IF "FAMILY PLANNING" PERSONNEL DO IT ON THEIR LUNCH HOUR

"Action by an individual acting in the individual’s capacity shall not be attributed to an organization with which the individual is associated, provided that the organization neither endorses nor provides financial support for the action and takes reasonable steps to ensure that the individual does not improperly represent that the individual is acting on behalf of the organization. ..."

SEPARATE BANK ACCOUNTS FOR ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

"The recipient may request USAID’s approval to treat as separate the family planning activities of two or more organizations, that would not be considered separate under the preceding sentence, if the recipient believes, and provides a written justification to USAID therefor, that the family planning activities of the organizations are sufficiently distinct so as to warrant not imputing the activity of one to the other."

ALL U.S. FUNDS MUST BE CLEANLY LAUNDERED

"Assistance for family planning may be furnished under this award by a recipient, subrecipient or sub-subrecipient to a foreign government even though the government includes abortion in its family planning program, provided that no assistance may be furnished in support of the abortion activity of the government and any funds transferred to the government shall be placed in a segregated account to ensure that such funds may not be used to support the abortion activity of the government."

DUBYA SAYS USAID SUBSIDIES WILL FUND CHILD-SPACING ABORTIONS

"The requirements of this paragraph are not applicable to child spacing assistance furnished to a foreign nongovernmental organization that is engaged primarily in providing health services if the objective of the assistance is to finance integrated health care services to mothers and children and child spacing is one of several health care services being provided by the organization as part of a larger child survival effort with the objective of reducing infant and child mortality."

I didn't talk to you during pardongate or since! That is when Burton really got my dander up! I personally don't agree with executive privilege, but I also don't agree with Burton's leaking which came out in force during pardongate. If I hadn't had my blinders on with my total dislike of the clinton administration, I would have looked at Burton differently then too. I have changed in a lot of areas and some of it came about during the pardongate hearings! I saw absolute grandstanding on the part of Burton and didn't like what I saw. Like I said, I don't particularly agree with Executive Privilege but Yes I have changed when it comes to Burton and it has nothing to do with GW.

How many times did Reagan invoke Executive Privilege (I honestly don't know and for what reasons). Executive Privlege has been around for a very long time and should be used very sparingly. If we had ethical people that knew how to keep their mouths shut instead of showing up on every TV cable show about what their committee is doing, maybe it wouldn't be necessary to use it!

So those emails you have are worthless or isn't a person allowed to change their opinion when they get more information. BTW pardongate was about clinton not GW!

As for defending GW on everything, you won't see me defending too much the education policy which I don't particularly like. My kids have had too many standardized test as it is! Also don't believe throwing more money at public education is going to solve the problem!

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